media ecology. exploring the metaphor. carlos a. scolari - universitat pompeu fabra...
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MEDIA ECOLOGY. Exploring the metaphor.
Carlos A. Scolari - Universitat Pompeu Fabra
www.digitalismo.com - www.hipermediaciones.com - www.modernclicks.net
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1960
1968N. Postman
National Council ofTeachers of English
Conference
1971Media Ecology
program at NY University
“Medium Theory”Meyrowitz , J. 1985 No sense of place: the impact of electronic media on social behavior
Media Ecology
2000MEA
InauguralConvention
1970 1990 2000
1960sMcLuhan introduces
the concept in private
communications
1980
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‘Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past,
as it will modify the future’ (1964: 199).
Jorge Luis BorgesKafka and His Precursors
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L. MumfordJ. Ellull
E. Havelock
J. Goody
H. Innis
W. Ong
M. McLuhanN. Postman
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Metaphor
Metaphor and theory
‘Metaphors matter’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980).
Metaphors are basic for scientific discourse and theoretical modelling
Boom of the ecological metaphor Cultural ecology (1955)
Biosemiotics (1962)
Biolinguistic (1967)
Ecological anthropology (1968)
Media Ecology (1968)
Political ecology (1972)
Sociobiology (1975)
Human behavioral ecology (1975)
Industrial ecology (1989)
Spatial ecology (1989)
Ecolinguistics (1990)
Communicative ecology (1995)
Historical ecology (1998)
Information ecologies (1999)
Howard and Eugene Odum (1953) Fundamentals of Ecology
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Interpretations of metaphor (I)
Media as environments
‘ME is the study of media as environments’ (Postman, 1970).
‘ME looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception,
understanding, feeling, and value (Postman, 1970).
‘Media are extensions’ (McLuhan, 1964).
‘Technology alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any
resistance’ (McLuhan, 1964).
This is the environmental dimension of Media Ecology:
media create an ‘environment’ that surrounds the individuals
and models their perception and cognition.
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Interpretations of metaphor (II)
Intermedia relations
‘The steadying influence of the book as a product of sustain intellectual effort was
destroyed by new developments in periodicals and newspapers’ (Innis, 1951).
‘The potential of the telegraph to transform information into a commodity might
never have been realized, except for the partnership between the telegraph and the
press’ (Postman, 1985).
‘No medium has its meaning or existence alone, but only in constant interplay with
other media” (McLuhan, 1964).
This is the intermedia dimension of Media Ecology:
media are like ‘species’ that live in the same ecosystem
and establish relationships between them.
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Exploring a scientific metaphor means analyzing the semantic universe of the analogy, translating the basic assumptions from one field to another to check the strength of the metaphor and identify new questions and challenges for media studies. I will limit my reflection to a short list of concepts:
Evolution
Interface
Hybridization
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Evolution
Origins
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859)
Dictionary
Mutation, natural selection, competence, extinction,
bifurcation, micro-evolution, macro-evolution.
Key-ideas
Ecology thinks in space while evolution thinks in time.
Evolution - Diachronic(Temporal axis)
Ecology - Synchronic(Spatial axis)
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Evolution
Expansion of the metaphor
Evolution has been immediately applied to Social
Sciences (Marx --> 1867 Das Kapital)
Evolution of technology: Simon, 1969; Basalla, 1988;
Kelly, 1992; Diamond, 1999; Saviotti, 2006; Ziman, 2000;
Frenken, 2006; Arthur, 2009.
Evolution of communication: speech, body-language,
fiction and music (Mellor, 1990); art (Dutton, 2009);
narrative (Boyd, 2009); literary genres (Moretti, 2005).
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‘It is time to look at the arts in the light of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution […] Recent years have seen immensely productive applications of Darwinian ideas in anthropology, economics, social psychology, linguistics, history, politics, legal theory, and criminology, as well as the philosophical
study of rationally, theology and value theory […]’
Denis Dutton (2009)The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
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‘Evocriticism (evolutionary-criticism) lets us link literature with the whole of life, with other human activities and
capacities, and their relation to those of other animals, as they compete, cooperate, and play, as they observe,
understand, and empathize with other. It can reconnect literature with the whole range of human experience […]’
Boyd, B. (2009) On the Origin of Stories. Evolution, cognition, and fiction
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Extinction
Questions
Can media become extinct?
Are we assisting to the extinction of mass media
and broadcasting?
The history of media is full of technological fossils
(from papyrus to telegraph).
But do media really become extinct? Do they,
as McLuhan postulated, survive in the content
of the ‘new’ media?
Carlon, C. / Scolari, C. (2009) El Fin de los Medios Masivos.
El comienzo de un debate
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Big Bang
New media species
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Explosion
Punctuated equilibrium (Eldredge and Gould, 1972)
Rapid events of branching speciation
Applied by:
- Franco Moretti (2005) -> literary genres (1740-1900)
- Bob Logan (2007) -> explosion of languages
Questions
Are we assisting to an explosion of ‘new’ media
and communication practices?
Can we re-write the history of media from this
perspective?
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Interfaces
Interface: a key-concept?
Like system in the 1950s, structure in the 1960s,
or text in the 1980s, interface may be the key concept
of the new generation of social scientists.
Human-machine interface
Technology-technology interface
Key-idea
Every media has an interface (human-technology
interface) and, at the same time, every media
is an interface (technology-technology interface).
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Interfaces
Media interfaces
The interface is the place where the evolution of
the media is negotiated -> human-media coevolution
The interface is also the place where media interact
between them -> intermedia coevolution
Key-ideas
The interface is the ‘environment’ that media
ecologists
have been analyzing for the last 50 years.
The study of the interfaces could be considered
the micro-level of Media Ecology analysis,
the minimal unit of analysis (like the sign for Linguistics
or the gene for Genetics)
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Coevolution
Concept
Coevolution is also a key concept for Media Ecology.
Questions
Human-media coevolution
How do consumers (readers, viewers, users) coevolve
with their media?
How do media coevolve with their consumers?
Intermedia coevolution
How do two or more media coevolve together
(cinema/TV, web/newspapers, etc.)?
Hybridizations / Remediations
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Intermedia coevolution
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Hybridizations / Remediations
Scolari, C. (2008) Hipermediaciones.
Elementos para unaTeoría de la Comunicación
Digital Interactiva
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Conclusions
In a few words…
To expand the ecological metaphor…
… mans to increase the dictionary and explore new research lines:
Media evolution
Interface
Human-media coevolution
Intermedia coevolution / Hybridizations
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Email: [email protected]
Facebook: carlos.scolari
Twitter: cscolari
Blog I: www.digitalismo.com
Blog II: www.hipermediaciones.com
Website: www.modernclicks.net
Thanks!
Gracias!
Carlos A. Scolari
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Barcelona