The Official Newsletter for the Media Ecology Association

      

August 2023

So long to the dog days of Summer . . . 

With 24th Annual Convention of the MEA behind us, we look forward to new collaborations and opportunities for learning. As we gear up for the Fall semester, we are reminded that deadlines for  MEA executive board nominations are fast approaching.

This month's issue of the newsletter contains a letter from the MEA President Mike Plugh, calls for paper submissions and conference presentations, information about members receiving awards during the 24th Annual Convention, and updates on events for the Institute of General Semantics and publications from MEA members. 

In this issue . . . 

  • Letter from MEA President Mike Plugh
  • CfP: 25th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association, June 6-8th, 2024, at Daemon University in Amherst, NY
  • CfP for IGS October Symposium in NYC
  • MEA Board Nomination Deadline (8/31)
  • Media Ecology Student Symposium Call: Enlarging the Field
  • Updates on New Book Publications from Members
  • In Memoriam: Robert Barry Francos & Marvin Kitman
  • Invitation for Future Contributions

A Message from MEA President Michael Plugh

Greetings media ecology friends,

The heat of the summer has arrived and we hope things are comfortable and pleasant wherever this newsletter may find you. We’re very grateful to all of you who spent some time with us in June at the 24th Media Ecology Association convention at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan. We enjoyed a wonderful slate of featured speakers, distinguished guests and performers, and the scholarship of our many community members. The remainder of this calendar year is devoted to continuing our publication of Explorations in Media Ecology, preparation for our first Media Ecology Student Symposium  to be held online on February 3rd, and the planning of our 25th convention at Daemen University in the summer of 2024. As usual, we hope you’ll participate in our listserv conversations, schedule a Virtual Coffee with a Media Ecologist, or keep us posted about any media ecology related news you have to share.  

Many thanks to the devoted team of Executive Board members who make the whole thing go around throughout the year. We hope you’ll find your way into our sphere of communication, be it in person or virtually, to get to know the team better. Maybe you’ll consider getting more involved. We’d love to have your talent and effort in our corner.

One final note from my desk…the MEA would like to acknowledge the passing of one of our dearest friends, Robert Barry Francos. Robert’s obituary can be found here with more details about his life and a lovely video of the service held in his memory. Robert completed a Masters at NYU’s media ecology graduate program and spent many years attending our conventions and events. He produced an extensive catalog of photography of the music scene in New York City and elsewhere, and lent his talents to documenting our conventions and other gatherings. I came to know Robert through his presence at these gatherings and would like to express my deep sadness at his passing. Robert was the sort to make everyone feel welcome. He was gregarious and kind, managed to document academic and social events with the discretion of a real professional, while also gracing every room with his smile, wit, and a wealth of storytelling. On behalf of our organization and community, I extend the deepest condolences to Robert’s family and loved ones. We hope to continue celebrating his life in the coming weeks and months and welcome your memories of his loving membership in our circle. 

With best wishes for the remaining summer weeks, yours truly,


Mike Plugh

President, Media Ecology Association

News from the Institute for General Semantics

Call for Papers & Proposals for October Symposium in NYC
 Following the 71st Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture to be delivered by Dr. Lera Boroditsky on Oct. 27th, the IGS will host a symposium on Non-Aristotelian Perspectives, Ecological Approaches, and the Anthropocene on Oct. 28th-29th at the Players in NYC. We welcome papers and proposals that relate to the topics of general semantics, linguistics and semiotics, media ecology, communication and culture, science and the empirical method, epistemology and phenomenology, cybernetics and systems theory, technology and society, art and perception, cognition and consciousness, evolution and emergence, health and human potential, etc. Send inquiries regarding participation and submissions to IGS President Lance Strate president@generalsemantics.org. For more information on the AKML and to register go to https://generalsemantics.org/event-5274046.

Call for Papers

The 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention

June 6–9, 2024
Daemen University, Amherst, NY

“Cultivating Community: A Celebration of MEA’s 25th Anniversary”

THE MEDIA ECOLOGY ASSOCIATION (MEA) invites the submission of abstracts of papers and proposals for panels for presentation at its 25th Annual Convention, which will be held from June 6–9, 2024 at Daemen University in Amherst, New York. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2024.

In recognition of the Media Ecology’s 25th anniversary and convention setting, the theme of the 2024 conference is community. The conference will take place on the Daemen University campus in Amherst, NY. Amherst is consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in America due to a community focus and investment in outlets for cultivating “relationally modern” young adults who are able to withstand and navigate intricacies of contemporary life in a digital landscape (Singer, 2014). The Daemen campus is just minutes from Buffalo, colloquially referred to as The City of Good Neighbors — a moniker evidenced by citizen responses to public tragedy and remarkable weather events.

Media ecology has roots in, borrows from, and advances notions pertinent to the intersection of community, democracy, culture, and the nature of cities. Many principal figures in the tradition of media ecology scholarship have worked closely in these areas, from Mumford’s attention to life in urban environments, to Carey’s concerns about democratic participation, as well as Gumpert and Drucker’s many talks and publications dealing with the intersection of said themes.

The annual meeting of the MEA provides an opportunity for our community of scholars, educators, professionals, artists, and practitioners to exchange experiences and ideas in a friendly environment. Participants at MEA conventions address a wide diversity of topics in our program. We encourage submissions that explore media ecological approaches from any number of different disciplines and fields of knowledge and social practice. We are interested in papers, thematic panels, roundtable discussion panels, creative projects, performance sessions, and other proposals of interest to media ecologists.

While we are open to explorations on any topic of interest to media ecologists, we also include a convention theme with the aim of generating further discussion and probes involving multiple perspectives. Submissions do not have to address the theme, but are invited to do so.

Guidelines for Submission

Please submit paper and panel proposals, in English, by February 1, 2024 to MEA2024@daemen.edu. A maximum of two submissions per author will be accepted. Authors who wish to be considered for the Top Paper or Top Student Paper award must indicate this on their submission(s).

Submission Guidelines for paper and panel proposals:

  1. Include title(s), abstract(s) (maximum 250 words), and contact information for each participant.
  2. Outline, as relevant, how your paper or panel will fit with the convention theme.
  3. Authors with papers submitted as part of a panel proposal or as a paper proposal who wish to be considered for Top Paper or Top Student Paper (see our Awards page for more details) must send the completed manuscript (see guidelines below) to the convention planners before the convention.

Submission guidelines for manuscripts for authors who wish to be considered for the Top Paper or Top Student Paper award:

  1. Manuscripts should be 4,000–6,000 words (approximately 15 to 25 double-spaced pages)
  2. Include a cover page with your institutional affiliation and other contact information.
  3. Include an abstract (maximum 150 words).

Please stay tuned for more information. Questions? Contact us.

2023 MEA Awards

(and the call for next year's awards)

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2023 Awards from the Media Ecology Association!

The Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology to Laura Trujillo Liñan for Formal Cause in Marshall McLuhan’s Thinking: An Aristotelian Perspective

The Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology to Austin Hestdalen for “The Kind of Problem a Smart City Is”

The Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social Interaction to Stephanie Bennett for Silence, Civility, and Sanity: Hope for Humanity in a Digital Age and Eva Berger for Context Blindness: Digital Technology and the Next Stage of Human Evolution

The Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form to Adeena Karasick for Massaging the Medium: Seven Pechakuchas

The Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture to Andrew Conte for Death of the Daily News: How Citizen Gatekeepers Can Save Local Journalism

The Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics to Paul Roquet for The Immersive Enclosure: Virtual Reality in Japan

The Harold A. Innis Award for Outstanding Thesis or Dissertation in the Field of Media Ecology to Graeme Flett for Media Ecology, Congregational Life, and Christian Identity

The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work to Paul Levinson for “It’s Real Life” (short story and radio play)

The John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology to Jenna Ng and Oliver Tomkins for The New Virtuality: A Creative Website on Disappearing Media Boundaries (online multimedia work)

The Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology to Erik Garrett

The Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism to Michelle Shocked

The James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Journalism to Farhad Manjoo

The Christine L. Nystrom Award for Career Achievement in Service to the Field of Media Ecology to Michael Plugh

The Edmund S. Carpenter Award for Career Achievement in Editing in the Field of Media Ecology to Carolyn Wiebe and Susan Maushart

The Walter J. Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship to Michael S. Schudson

The Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity to Richard Sennett


Convention Top Paper Award

Mindaugas Briedis (Universidad Panamericana, Ciudad de México México) and Mariano Navarro (Universidad Panamericana, Ciudad de México México) for “Enactive Approach to Social Interactions in Artistic Media Ecologies: D. Rivera’s Case”


Linda Elson Scholar Award for Top Student Paper

Desislava Stoeva (St. John’s University) for “‘I Am Big. It’s the Pictures That Got Small’: A Look at Sunset Boulevard Through Marshall McLuhan’s Theory of Hot and Cool Media and Personalities”


Call for Nominations for the 2024 MEA Awards

The MEA Book Awards include the

  • Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology (books on any topic related to media ecology)
  • The Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social Interaction (books that focus on social situations, symbolic interaction, both face-to-face and mediated interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication, social space, temporal rhythms, rules of engagement, performance of roles, and the presentation of self in everyday life)
  • The Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form (books that focus on the ecology of language, semantics, semiotics, codes, symbol systems, aesthetic form, etc.)
  • The Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture (books that focus on the ethnographic or intercultural analysis of communication, perception, cognition, consciousness, media, technology; material culture, and/or the natural environment)
  • The Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics (books that focus on the history and/or philosophy of technology or science; studies of specific technologies, techniques, or media, and/or their social, cultural, and psychological effects; analysis and criticism of the technological/information society)

All entries will be automatically considered for the McLuhan, Goffman, Langer, Lee, and Mumford Awards. Open to books published in 2021 or later. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and two copies for initial screenings; finalists will be instructed to send three copies directly to the judges.

The Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology
Open to articles, essays, reviews, and book chapters published in 2019 or later on any topic related to media ecology. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and four copies (or shareable file).

The Harold A. Innis Award for Outstanding Thesis or Dissertation in the Field of Media Ecology
Open to any Master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation completed for a degree granted in 2019 or later on any topic related to media ecology. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and four copies (or shareable file).

The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work
Open to novels, short stories, hypertexts, plays, scripts, comics, audio recordings, motion pictures, videos, and other narrative forms, published or released in 2019 or later, that include media ecology themes, concepts, or insights. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and two copies.

The John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in the Field of Media Ecology
Open to works of art, media production, professional activity or other practical applications of the media ecology approach. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and supporting materials.

The Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology
Open to any instructor on any educational level. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and supporting materials.

The Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism
Open to any individual engaged in political activism whose work is informed by the media ecology perspective. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and supporting materials.

The James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Journalism
Open to any individual engaged in journalism whose work is informed by the media ecology perspective. Entry requirements: Letter of nomination or self-nomination and supporting materials.

* * *

Send all entries by November 1, 2023 to Lance Strate, Department of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University, 441 E. Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458, USA, or via email to strate@fordham.edu.

MEA Executive Board Nominations

Be sure to attend the MEA Board Meeting & Luncheon on Friday, June 23rd, during the MEA Convention. Members will have the opportunity to nominate others for the four elected positions on the MEA Executive Board. These positions include: Vice President Elect, Recording Secretary, Newsletter Editor, and Member at Large (descriptions of each listed below with full descriptions found in the MEA Constitution & Bylaws).

  • Vice President Elect: The Vice-President Elect shall serve as the officer in charge of the next year’s annual convention, and assist the Vice-President as deemed necessary.
  • Recording Secretary: The Recording Secretary shall record minutes of all meetings of the Executive Board and the General Meeting at the Association’s Convention.
  • Newsletter Editor: The Newsletter Editor shall edit, publish, and distribute the Association’s newsletter, In Media Res.
  • Member at Large: The At-Large Officers shall attend Executive Board meetings and otherwise perform duties on an ad hoc basis.

Nominations will be taken until August 31st, 2023, at which point candidates will be asked to provide statements of their qualifications before membership voting in October of this year. 

Any nominations not made during the MEA Board meeting on should be sent to Adriana Braga via email. 

CALL FOR PAPERS THE FIRST MEDIA ECOLOGY ASSOCIATION STUDENT SYMPOSIUM ONLINE

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3RD, 2024

The Media Ecology Association is proud to announce our first student symposium, scheduled for Saturday, February 3rd, 2024, exclusively conducted online. This symposium is aimed at offering students of all levels an opportunity to present their media ecology scholarship as the centerpiece of an official organizational event. The symposium will feature panels of student work throughout the day, conducted via Zoom, and each panel will be assigned a respondent from the MEA Executive Board for constructive feedback aimed at celebrating and advancing scholarship in our field.

Participation is limited to undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students, officially enrolled at institutions of higher learning. Attendance is open to the general public. Registration is free to all MEA members. Non-Members will be able to register for a fee of $10.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION

Please submit paper and panel proposals, in English, by October 31, 2023 to MEAStudentSymposium2024@gmail.com. A maximum of two submissions per author will be accepted. Authors who wish their papers to be considered for the Top Paper award must indicate this on their submission(s).

Submission Guidelines for paper and panel proposals: Include title(s), abstract(s) (maximum 250 words), and contact information for each participant. Outline, as relevant, how your paper or panel will fit with the convention theme. Authors with papers submitted as part of a panel proposal or as a paper proposal that wish to be considered for Top Paper must send the completed paper to the convention planner by December 1, 2023.

Submission guidelines for manuscripts eligible for MEA award submissions: Manuscripts should be 4,000–6,000 words (approximately 15 to 25 double-spaced pages) Include a cover page with your institutional affiliation and other contact information. Include an abstract (maximum 150 words).

Please visit media-ecology.org for more information about the Media Ecology Association, our annual convention, and our publication profile.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

2024 Orality & Literacy Conference

April 4th-5th

Geneva College

Beaver Falls, PA

Geneva College welcomes submissions for a conference entitled: “Orality and Literacy in an Age of Social Media”

Deadline for Submission: Saturday, October 30, 2023, 11:59 p.m. EST Proposal Submissions: Attn. Sarah S. Speicher, sbspeich@geneva.edu

Walter J. Ong’s discussion in his influential books The Presence of the Word and Orality & Literacy invite us to ask, what are words and how do words work? Such basic questions, often taken for granted historically, technologically, and theologically, should instead prompt further inquiry. Ong’s contributions suggest we might find fruitful cues for thought by continuing to study modern means of communication. Ong’s reflections on oral patterns of thinking, transitions in writing and printing, and prescient insights regarding our social media technologies provoke stimulating questions worth considering. In this light, we call a conference entitled “Orality and Literacy in an Age of Social Media,” inviting convivial conversation around this question “How might people-like us interpret ‘In the beginning was the Word’ for our time?

Paper proposal submissions should be a 300-500 word abstract with a bibliography. Submissions should have all author identification (author name, university affiliation, etc.) removed. Abstracts can be submitted either as a Microsoft Word document or a PDF. Please email submissions to Sarah Speicher, at sbspeich@geneva.edu

DEADLINE SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2023 at 11:59PM EST

Submit ALL papers/sessions/panels to INDICATE if you need any A/V equipment. Requests must be made at the time of the paper, session or panel submission and should be kept to essential equipment only, please.

If you have any questions, please contact the program planners for questions regarding the conference or submission at sbspeich@genva.edu. By mail at: Geneva College, 3200 College Ave, Beaver Falls, PA 15010, Or by phone at (724) 847-670

Stay in Touch w/ the MEA via on Social Media and Email!

Historically, the MEA’s email discussion list has provided online conversation for members and friends of the Media Ecology Association. Subscribers use the list to share views, exchange information, and learn about interesting events related to media ecology. And don't forget to follow MEA on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter)
Subscribe Today!

In Memoriam

Robert Barry Francos & Marvin Kitman

The executive board would also like to extend its sincerest condolences to the family and friends of two longtime supporters of the MEA who recently passed away. 

Robert Barry Francos was born in Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, NY on May 10, 1955. He attended P.S. 128, then Lafayette High School, both in Brooklyn. He completed his undergraduate education at Kingsborough College in Brooklyn and then Queen’s College. Robert was Editor in Chief of both college newspapers. He completed a Master’s degree in Media Ecology at NYU in Manhattan, worked for several years in the publishing industry, then rounded out his NYC career with 13 years at McKinsey & Co, followed by 2 years at PR Newswire, before moving to Canada, where he ran the Learning Lab at the YWCA in Saskatoon until he retired. 

Robert was a writer, photographer, music and film critic, a bonified media ecologist who had a penchant for bringing like-minded people into thoughtful conversation, with a good measure of humor thrown in. In Canada, much to the surprise of his NYC crew, he became a gardener and wanderer of the plains and Northern regions.

Robert was gregarious, generous, kind, smart, and enjoyed life. He was always there for friends and family who were also always there for him. Donations in his memory can be made to the YWCA in Saskatoon, the Kidney Foundation of Canada, or one can plant a tree in Israel in Robert’s name. 


Marvin Kitman was born November 24th, 1929, in Pittsburgh, PA to Jewish parents who immigrated from Russia. While maintaining a career as a prominent American television critic, humorist, and author, Kitman spent 35 years as a columnist for Newsday. Kitman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1982 and was the recipient of the JAmes W. Carey Award for Outstanding MEdia Ecology Journalism in 2008. Kitman's McLuhan-esque understandings of the anthropological impacts of TV can be read here. 

New Book Explores Navigating Opening & Touching in a Post-Pandemic World Through Innovative Poetry, Typography and Sound

Ouvert Oeuvre: Openings

Poems by Adeena Karasick

Visualization by Warren Lehrer 

Inscribing what the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas might call “espace vital” (the space we can survive), Ouvert Oeuvre: Openings is an ecstatically wrought exploration of openings in a (never quite) post-Covid world. Written by internationally lauded poet, performer and cultural theorist Adeena Karasick and visualized by renowned designer/author and vis lit pioneer Warren Lehrer, the title poem and Touching in the Wake of the Virus track the trepidations and celebrations of openings read through socio-economic, geographic and bodily space. Both poems explore a range of intralingual etymologies laced with post-consumerist and erotic language, theoretical discourse, philosophical and Kabbalistic aphorisms. They foreground language and book-space as organisms of hope—highlighting the concept of opening and touching as an ever-swirling palimpsest of spectral voices, textures, whispers and codes transported through passion, politics and pleasure as we negotiate loss and light.

“Karasick’s poetry jolts and challenges us out of our of comfort zones and our notion of what poetry is, or could be.” Tablet Magazine

“In Lehrer’s books, words take on thought’s very form, bringing sensory experience to the reader as directly as ink on paper can allow.” The New York Times Book Review

CONTACT: Bill Lavender bill.lavender@gmail.com (504) 813 9891

New Memoir Reveals Secrets of Why There Are Massive Neuroqueer (Neurodiversity + Queernesses) Self-Realizations in the Envirusment (Environment + Virus = Envirusment)

I have been the bad guy: Neuroqueer Self-Realizations in the Algorithmic Age

By: Dr. Bernadette "bird" Bowen


Have you ever been made to feel like the bad guy? Dr. bird has too. In this brief memoir, they reveal secrets about their life that they have kept hidden for over thirty years regarding compulsory heterosexuality, repressed/unexplored queernesses, and the late in life realization that -- turns out -- they're #actuallyautistic! Retold from their 33-year-old Dr. bird’s eye view, these extensively brave disclosures add one whole lifetime of flesh onto the U.S. body politic. This timely manuscript illuminates, historicizes, and contextualizes the f***ing fact that autism is not “just a trend” taking off just on TikTok recently, but that there are massive neuroqueer self-realizations happening worldwide in the algorithmic envirusment (environment + virus = envirusment). Dr. bird’s unmasked writing voice puts the “cut-the-shit” into “slice-of-life,” providing deep and raw disclosures of lifelong confusion, gaslighting, and struggles with family dysfunction, friendship loss, vulnerability, intimacy, sexual violence, and substance abuse. After extensive sharing, it’s time to grieve. They usher in a eulogy for their lifetimes that once were, by diagnosing how foundational U.S. ideas did and continue to dehumanize, sicken, disable, and deaden us. Then, they preach to the global choir about the single most connected time in history. Dr. bird has a lot more puns and trauma than answers, but in the end, recommends some liberatory antibodies for moving forward, far less miserably.

Are you interested in media ecology and have some questions about it? Are you working on a study related to media ecology and searching for advice? Are you an instructor looking for a media ecology expert to invite as a virtual guest speaker to one of your classes?

Get in touch with us! We are happy to schedule a “virtual coffee” appointment with you. Simply fill out the form below to set up a short call or virtual meeting with a scholar from the MEA.

The format is open to all. We especially encourage students and early-career scholars interested in media ecology to get in touch with us.

Do you have a background in media ecology and would like to volunteer for virtual coffee meetings with those looking to learn more about it? Send an email to Julia M. Hildebrand.

Arrange a Virtual Coffee appointment on our website. 

Book Reviewers Wanted!

Have you read a good book with connections to Media Ecology?  Please consider submitting a review for publication in Explorations in Media Ecology.  Are you reading a new book for use in an upcoming class?  Please consider submitting a review and helping out other scholars looking for new texts.  Do you just like writing book reviews? Consider writing one for EME!!  :)  Contact jbogaczyk@gmail.com for more information and to get a format template.  Reviews should be between 1000 and 2000 words.

Back Issues of EME

Pedagogy Sections Include Online Teaching

Access all back issues of Explorations in Media Ecology in the Members Area on the MEA website. These back issues include pedagogy sections that contain information about teaching, including teaching online.

MEA Membership Renewal Reminder

It is not too late to renew your membership by paying your dues.  Please log into the website at www.media-ecology.org, and then log in using your email ID and password and follow the directions. You may pay online via PayPal or pay by check made payable to the Media Ecology Association and mailed to our treasurer, Paul Soukup, S.J., at the Communication Department; Santa Clara University; 500 El Camino Real; Santa Clara, CA  95053 USA. For those outside the U.S., you may also pay by Western Union money order sent to psoukup@scu.edu.  If you wish to change your membership, please drop Paul Soukup a note. 

*Please note: The Media Ecology Association Executive Board decided that the newsletter will be available online to all interested readers. However, only members can be featured in the newsletter itself. If you are a MEA member, please fill out this form (include a call to submit material+ link). 

Message from the Editor: A Year in Rear-View

Austin Hestdalen, Duquesne University

I invite members to submit content in any of the below areas of interest listed for publication in our monthly newsletter. 

  • Media Ecology - Booknotes: A segment originally appearing in the first few issues of In Media Res. Booknotes offers membership the opportunity to contribute short reviews of books that are either directly or tangentially related to the study of media ecology and offer the potential for reconsidering important aspects of media ecological study.
  • Media Ecology - Scholarship In Brief: The scholarship in brief segment appeared in the earliest issues of the newsletter and offered frameworks for revisiting what might be described as the foundational texts of media ecology. This segment offers membership the opportunity to discuss both old and new interpretations of 'canonical' works in media ecology. 
  • Media Ecology at Work: An older segment in which members have the chance to parse the professional and practical implications of media ecology in their daily lives. Contributions take an almost essayistic format in which membership contemplate how media ecology might inform everyday activities of work, play, and anything in between. 
  • Media Ecology and the Arts: This segment focuses on ever-emerging considerations of media in music, and the visual, literary, performance, and plastic arts. Contributions contemplate media and the artistic counter-environments that allow us to negotiate media constraints.
  • Cornering Media Ecology: A new segment that invites media ecologists to offer critical understandings of media and the competing ecologies they generate in human communication. Contributions can include anything from critical reinterpretations of media ecological texts to those that parse the implications of the media ecological approach in a variety of contexts. 
  • General Letters to the Editor: This segment invites membership to share thoughts both on the newsletter and the MEA as whole and is open to any form discussion and critique. Contributions are encouraged to offer insights into how the newsletter and association might extend the study of media ecology in ways that reflect the interests of the membership. 

Contributions to any of the above segments should be submitted to the newsletter editor, Austin Hestdalen (ahestdalen1229@gmail.com).

Please be sure to include the name of segment for which you are submitting in the subject line.

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