The Official Newsletter for the Media Ecology Association

March 2023

In Honor of Women's History Month . . . 

This month's issue of the newsletter reminds us about the significant work being done by women within the field of media ecology and how scholars can benefit from a feminist lens.  We encourage members to review the list of works demonstrating overlap between media ecology and feminist studies. We encourage members of the MEA to discuss these connections  by subscribing to our email list here: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/mea

This issue of In Media Res also features contributions from MEA members, reminders about upcoming deadlines, and funding opportunities for student travel and grant funding. We conclude with an invitation from the newsletter editor, Austin Hestdalen, encouraging members to reach out and become reviewers for MEA @ NCA and the Explorations in Media Ecology Journal. 

In this issue . . . 

• Celebrating Women's History Month
• Media Ecology Booknotes: Reading In the Human Grain with Tiffany Petricini
• Cornering Media Ecology: "Housing as Medium" with Sarah J. Constant
• Media Ecology in Conversation: Stacey O'Neal Irwin Post-phenomenological Entanglements
• Invitation for Future Contributions

Media Ecology Booknotes

Tiffany Petricini, Asst. Teaching Professor

Penn State Shanango 

Technological Culture and Its Effect on Man, Literature, and Religion by Walter J. Ong

In the Human Grain is a collection of essays by Ong that explore knowledge, time consciousness, our material being, technology and faith.  Originally published in 1967, the collection of essays are early works of Ong’s.  Ong considered this collection to be a sequel to his 1962 work The Barbarian Within, a work in which he grappled with how human beings relate to each other. 

Within this text, there are three parts.  The first part is titled “At the Present Front of Knowledge” and consists of four essays:  Breakthrough in Communications, Synchronic Present, The Knowledge Explosion in the Humanities, and The Word in Chains.  These essays lay the epistemological foundations that flow into Ong’s later works, including The Presence of the Word, which was published the same year, and Orality and Literacy, published in 1982.  Ong showed in these chapters that human consciousness and the accumulation of collective knowledge has been made possible due to the development of communicative technologies, such as writing, print, and electronic media.

The second section, titled “Illusion of Return” consists of three essays:   Evolution and Cyclicism in Our Time, Nationalism and Darwin, and Evolution, Myth, and Poetic Vision.  The observant reader might recognize the connection to Mircea Eliade’s Myth of the Eternal Return, which informs this section significantly.  Ong discussed the evolution of time consciousness alongside the correlative shifts in communicative technologies, then teased out the representations of these structures in popular rhetoric and the implications for culture in these chapters. 

Last, “Faith in Our Age” is the final section and contains four essays:  Religion, Scholarship, and the Resituation of Man, Post-Christian or Not?, American Culture and Morality, and The Lady and the Issue.  Drawing from the earlier essay themes of cognition, knowledge, time consciousness, and Darwin (among many other topics), Ong worked to show that rather than threaten faith, technological and cultural developments have instead only revealed His presence. 

About the author: Tiffany Petricini is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Communication at Penn State Shenango and Program Coordinator of the Corporate Communication program. Her publications have reflected interests in phenomenology, interpersonal communication, philosophy, ethics, and media ecology. Tiffany has been an invited speaker on the international radio program "Spark" on CBC radio one and at SUNY Plattsburgh at the Ethics Institute. Tiffany may be reached for questions via email here (tzr106@psu.edu)

Cornering Media Ecology

Housing as Medium

Sarah J. Constant, Asst. Teaching Professor

Dept. of Communication Arts & Sciences

Penn State

Housing is a type of media that is both influenced by and shapes the media environment it exists in. The architecture, design, and location of housing communicate different messages about the people who live in them and the society that produced them. According to Marshall McLuhan, housing is a communication medium that shapes our perception of the world and influences the way we interact and communicate with others. Stuart Hall notes that media portrayals of marginalized groups can contribute to negative stereotypes and social inequalities, which can also be seen in how public housing is perceived and stigmatized. Harold Innis believes that media technologies have a significant impact on the economic, political, and cultural structures of societies, which can also be applied to housing. Neil Postman argues that media are a type of ecology that shapes our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, indicating that housing can have an impact on the ways in which we see the world.

Public housing policies and programs communicate messages about the government's commitment to addressing poverty and inequality and reflect the values and priorities of the society in which they exist. They communicate the government's role in ensuring that basic human needs are met for all citizens, regardless of socioeconomic status. However, public housing is often stigmatized and associated with poverty and social exclusion, making it difficult for residents to access social and economic opportunities. By examining housing, particularly public housing, as a form of media, we can gain a deeper understanding of the social, economic, and political forces that shape housing policy and the experiences of low-income communities. Media ecology provides a useful lens through which to study the relationship between housing and the media environment it exists in.

About the author: Sarah Constant studies low-income housing policy and design in American and European contexts. Her work on social housing in the Netherlands explains the rhetorical and symbolic importance of extravagant working-class housing designed by members of the so-called Amsterdam School during the early twentieth century. She has taught courses in public speaking, argument, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and conflict management. Sarah can be reached for questions directly via email (SZC6402@PSU.EDU)

Media Ecology in Conversation

An Interview with Prof. Stacey O'Neal Irwin

Austin Hestdalen, In Media Res Editor

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to speak with Prof. Stacey O’Neal Irwin over zoom and discuss how post-phenomenological frameworks overlap with studies of media ecology.  Prof. Irwin is an Associate Professor of Media in the Department of Communication & Theatre at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of the 2016 book, Digital Media: Human-Technology Connection, a post-phenomenological examination of what it is like to live in today’s technologically mediated world.

Below, you will find an excerpt from the interview transcript. For the full conversation reach out to Austin Hestdalen here (hestdalena@duq.edu).

Hestdalen: So, what is post-phenomenology? How would you describe it?

Irwin: Well, the short and simple answer is that, following the work of Don Ihde and and Peter Paul Verbeek, it's a framework for understanding how mediation and human technology world experience interconnects. To understand that you have to connect the lived world and technological experience in kind of a hermeneutic, phenomenological way. And then you take that experience and you ‘post it’ as I say. Now what exactly makes it post? Don, Ihde said offhandedly, what’s post for our knowledge is in what you do after you've done the phenomenology; after you've done all the thinking through of the experience, the thing itself, the experience, then you go on to what's next. And for him that was a kind of a pragmatic turn to a use-case that you could run the experience through to see if you could learn how the different tensions of the human and technology world kind of bumped up against and interconnected with each other. So, post-phenomenology is kind of phenomenology that ends in pragmatism.

Hestdalen: Would you say that [post-phenomenology], on that level, considers questions of praxis and the value of mediated action in everyday life?

Irwin: It's funny that Samantha Jo Fried in the most recent post phenomenology and imaging books, talks about our obligation. On the level of civic engagement, what we learn about the lived experience of the human and technology world. We look at a use case. We look at the trajectories, how [that relation] went off in certain directions through history. We look at the socioeconomic or the sociocultural side of things. We look at the lived-body. And then we ask “Where does that leave us does this leave us? Do we just sit back and relax?” I mean, for [Freed] and for many of us, we realize that after we technology is not understood as neutral—that it has positive and negative effects and that those negative effects are tangible—we ask what obligations we have post phenomenologist, as philosophers, as humans, as educators to move to, to make some claims at the end. I think it's really important not to name something as good or bad. I think our job is to figure out what those tensions are in those technologies we use in the world, how [technologies] work in the world, and how they work for us as humans. But that's the ethical side, not just sitting there, for post phenomenology. For phenomenology the essence is just realizing the thing itself. Now, of course, Heidegger says: “oh, the thing itself is a water dam, so let's go talk about how horrible its and enframing and how horrible all that is! From a post phenomenology framework perspective, you are looking at how things work together, and then you're kind of pulling it apart and figuring out what direction it goes in.

Hestdalen: That sounds a lot like the idea of technological entanglements in your own work. Could you speak about the idea of entanglement and texture in our experience of technology?

Irwin: Sure, I think you get to a point when you work with your technology—if you're really in it, if you are embedded—then its like you're just one mesh, one big interwoven jumble of you and the technology. When I'm editing, for instance, I will think the way that the technology has made me think, so to speak, to get to where I need to go. Now, if I use a different technology, it's going to push me in different direction. I started to realize when I was editing that I was pre editing, because I knew how I could work the technology to make shortcuts and make changes. My artistic ideas of editing a film were altered by the way the technology was set up. I was beginning to think, in a way that allowed the human and technology to merge in a way that had not occurred to me before I had the technology. That is technological texture. It's when you're making your decisions based on the technology when you're not even using the technology. You're making your decisions with the technological stance, or in a way that brings that into the relationship even when you're not physically there using [technology]. So that is when our creativity, the nature of our creativity, the nature of the things we do, changes.

Hestdalen: That sounds a lot like a sort of flow state in arts and crafts. Would you describe like that?

Irwin: you could. You know when somebody is making jewelry, or making a pot using clay, or any tool. Use the idea of tool use. and you can absolutely lose yourself with the hammer, or any tool. But then I feel like with the technology, it goes one step further in that intertwining.

Hestdalen: It seems like getting entangled in a digital medium is really like getting entangled in so many different media at once or very complex medium, for like lack of a better term.

Irwin: It’s a confluence of a bunch of different flows or a warp in fabric. There's this lack of really looking at all of the effects. In post phenomenology there are macro perspectives and micro perspectives: “How does [this technology] affect the embodied experience?” On one hand we don't get tired because we're sitting. On the other hand, we get carpal tunnel syndrome because we're using the technology. But this also extends to the socio-cultural side of things: “How does it change the nature of games and learning? How does that change the nature of the game? How does it change the nature of how kids play with others? If you're not across from me?” Its all about understanding the essence of the human technology relation in the world and their the use cases after we have that understanding.

Hestdalen: Would you say that that's kind of the methodology for post-phenomenology? Or is post-phenomenology mostly described as a framework? Could you go into more detail about the post phenomenological method? Are there multiple methods? What does a post-phenomenological framework look like?

Irwin: There is this book about methodologies that really goes into a lot of the language and examples of post-phenomenology. I like to think of it more of a framework than a methodology and it probably is just because yes, something can be multi-method, or but it makes it sound very complicated. A framework to me is like, “Here are these things and you do the phenomenology, and then you post it, and then you come up with this understanding. After you've done that, you come up with this rendering phenomenological rendering, and you kind of take it through the framework you ask: “What are the trajectories of this human technology world experience. What about experience did it change? How did the technology change it? How did the experience change our understanding of the technology?”

Prof. Irwin can be reached for questions via email here: (stacey.irwin@millersville.edu)

To read the complete transcript of the interview, please reach out to Austin Hestdalen directly, here (hestdalena@duq.edu).

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 @ NCA 2023

NCA 109th Annual Convention
Convention Theme: "Freedom”
November 17-20, 2022
National Harbor, Maryland

The Media Ecology Association welcomes submissions for the 2023 National Communication Association convention, centered on the theme of "Freedom." Media Ecology is concerned with the idea of freedom in any number of significant ways. Discussions of technological determinism in the work of Jacques Ellul and Marshall McLuhan emphasize how new technologies condition and constrain freedoms of thought, word, and deed. The work of Neil Postman emphasizes the connection between freedom of discourse and political action. More recent works by scholars such as Armond Towns and Sarah Sharma reconsider how media have both restricted and facilitated the freedom of different bodies. While Douglas Rushkoff's work has offered contributions related to econmic freedom and precarity. Such considerations remind media ecologists of the importance of free speech as a foundation for understanding the importance of media in society and the ethical implications they have for communication.

This call invites you to explore these concerns, emphasizing the historical and intellectual roots of our field, and their relevance to the theme of "Freedom." As such, papers and panels that deal with topics related to the theme are encouraged (though not required). Likewise, proposals that link traditionally distinct thinkers or disciplines to media ecology, extend established ideas or concepts, or otherwise advance existing approaches to the field, are also welcomed. Submissions from scholars of diverse intellectual backgrounds and traditionally underrepresented groups are highly encouraged to apply.

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 (hestdalena@duq.edu).

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

This message was sent to you by Media Ecology Association.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time

 {Organization_URL}