Cultural studies and media ecology: Meyrowitz's medium theory and Carey's cultural studies

Abstract

The recent proliferation of scholarship outlining the intellectual roots of media ecology represents a welcome break from past scholarship that dismissed studies of forms of communication as mere technological determinism. In this essay, the work of two prominent communication and media studies scholars, Joshua Meyrowitz and James Carey, is examined in order to demonstrate how their studies represent media ecology with rigorous and insightful analyses of the dynamic interaction between communication, consciousness, and culture. Perhaps more importantly, this essay highlights how the works of these two media ecologists fit into and embody a North American cultural studies approach to media studies. The intent of this essay is to push the understanding of the intellectual roots of media ecology toward a broader analysis of how media ecology is embedded in, and advocates for, the larger move in communication studies away from narrow, quantitative effects research and towards qualitative and interdisciplinary scholarship that is North American cultural studies.