This page contains bibliographies, links, outlines and essays pertinent to the field of Media Ecology (material related to my course on Media Ecology may be found under "Courses"). An un-appetizing label, "Media Ecology" was coined by Neil Postman, but he professed to have learned it from Marshall MacLuhan. It is the emerging discipline that attempts to assess how differing media, largely irrespective of their content, shape the humane environment, thereby altering individuals and cultures.
Media Ecology
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Attention |
The French mystic Simone Weil observed that the essence of love was attentiveness. Yet many authors (Maggie Jackson, Mark Bauerlein, Maryanne Wolf, Winifred Gallagher, et al.) have called attention to the distracting/alarming nature of electronic media, and the effects of the same on our attentiveness. |
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Email Courtesy |
A brief (5 page) discussion of basic email courtesy. |
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Ellul's 76 Questions |
This is the list of 76 "Reasonable Questions" Jacques Ellul proposed to be raised when assessing any technology. Interesting and helpful in their own right, if you pose them to an engineer, the result is as amusing as watching a cat chase its tail. |
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Graph of 19th & 20th c. media |
Displays the fairly rapid development of electronic and image-based media. |
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The Kindle |
An abbreviated discussion of some of the liabilities of e readers, and how/why (for business reasons) the true potential of this technology has not been realized and probably will not be realized. |
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Technology and Education |
A general discussion of the various educational issues surrounding technology and education. It is informed by classical communication's theory of subject-document-audience, and argues that electronic technologies frequently serve the document at the expense of the subject and the audience. |
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Timeline of media |
Timeline of the development of major media from the development of writing to the present. |
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Why I Don't Use PowerPoint |
A brief apology for why I consider PowerPoint to be corrosive of what I attempt to accompllish as an educator. |