Reactionary speech in the digital age

The 22nd Convention of the Media Ecology Association

This article builds a case for starting undergraduate media ecology education with reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman’s work puts forward the important and fundamental precepts of media ecology and moves students to think about the connection between medium and content as well as media as environments. The text also illustrates a clear shift in media environments, another building block for understanding media ecology. Most central to the case of starting with this text is that Postman offers a critique of an older media environment, television, which students will find more rhetorically acceptable than criticism of our current digital media environment. Choosing to start with a criticism of an older medium creates space for media ecology pedagogy to thoroughly investigate other media environments.

Relevance. The widespread use of modern information and communication technologies, in particular, social Internet media, forms a special space (media ecosystem), which has a significant impact on the formation of public opinion, values and behavior of people. Particularly significant in the realities of expanding the boundaries of the media space of the culture of modern society, in the context of human interaction and the media ecosystem, is the researchers' appeal to the problem of determining the basic principles of the information and environmental media hygiene, considered as the ability of society to resist the destructive influence of media discourse in the post-truth era and related to the study of the influence of the media on mental and moral health of a person. The purpose of this work is a sociological analysis of the information and environmental media environment as one of the directions of countering the risks and dangers of the modern media environment. Objectives: disclosure of the essence of the main risks and dangers of the modern media environment; analysis of the relationship between the concepts of "information hygiene" and "information and environmental media hygiene"; definition of the basic principles of information and environmental media hygiene both from the side of modern social media (primarily Internet communication) and from the side of modern active users of the media environment (both media consumers and media producers). Methodology. The article uses such general scientific methods as comparative analysis, synthesis, abstraction and generalization. The research is based on the basic principles of a systematic and structural-functional approach. An ecological approach to understanding the media space was chosen as the main theoretical and methodological guideline. Results. The paper presents the results of theoretical and methodological analysis of the phenomenon of information and environmental media hygiene. The basic principles of the information and environmental media hygiene are defined and formulated both on the part of modern social media (primarily Internet communication media) and on the part of modern active users of the media environment (both media consumers and media producers). Conclusions. The modern media space and the developed media environment, in addition to providing various benefits and privileges to meet the information needs of media users, also carries large-scale risks and dangers, which, first of all, include infodemia and infoxification. Due to the fact that these negative phenomena have serious consequences for society, it becomes especially important to define and develop the principles of information and environmental media hygiene, which must be observed both by modern social media (primarily Internet communication) and by active users of the media environment (both media consumers and media producers).

Media Ecology is study of complex communication systems as environments. Media ecologists are interested in the interactions of communications media, technology, technique, and processes with human feelings, thoughts, values, and behaviour. Ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people and media environments; the specifications are more often implicit and informal, half concealed by our assumption that what we are dealing with is not an environment but merely a machine. Media Ecology tries to find out what roles media forces us to play, the media structure what we are seeing, why media make us feel and act as we do. An ecological perspective instead views the human as always being situated within both environmental and technical networks, and contends that an analysis of the human must not proceed from an abstract essence, such as the concept of the soul or free will. An ecological perspective instead views the human as always being situated within both environmental and technical networks, and contends that an analysis of the human must not proceed from an abstract essence, such as the concept of the soul or free will, but instead should compose an investigation into the networks in which humanity is situated. McLuhan saw that media change the way we live and who we are. McLuhan gave Media Ecology a centre of gravity, a moral compass. Neil Postman, who wisely created Media Ecology in so much of McLuhan’s image, was the one most responsible for our focus on media, technology, process, and structure, rather than content. This paper analyses the different dimensional effects of Media Ecology and the own personal interpretation of the author himself.

This review is a synthesis and analysis of the evolution, core concepts and the future implications of media ecology on human thought and perception. It is an interdisciplinary subject that studies media as environments impacting societal frameworks, cultural practices and human perceptions. With Marshal McLuhan’s “Medium is the message” and later developments by Walter J. Ong and Neil Postman in the middle of the 20th century. This article is an effort to pay tribute to theorists, researchers, and media specialists on the media ecology. 100 peer- reviewed articles, books and seminal monographs were reviewed and analyzed to construct the solid foundations of the New Media Ecology. The main objective of this article was to create a theoretical framework for the understanding of media ecology theory. The review is based on two main nodes: media as environment and media as species. The deductive approach has been implied to carry out this detailed descriptive analysis. It's the study of how different forms of communication affect human perception, cognition, emotion, and value, as well as how our participation in media helps or hurts our chances of survival. It's challenging to research media ecology since all habitats are essentially intangible and interrelated, making evaluation difficult. This article's content is based on the researches highlighting the need for explanations of new theories and metaphors in contemporary media ecology. Using these findings, we can now begin delving into the interpretation of future metaphors, relating them to society and its mediating wishes and expectations, as well as their origins. The gaps identified in the study is have longitudinal study on media environments and media literacy of the diverse ecological settings.

The European Union's planning documents for 2040 clearly outline the importance of an environmental economy, which focuses on the economic impact of environmental policies and the sustainable management of natural resources, emphasising the need to integrate ecological principles into economic systems. The planning documents at all levels pay particular attention to the circulation of information, to keeping the public informed about the promotion of green thinking and sustainable development. The media ecosystem, which focuses on the media environment and its impact on people's behaviour, perception and understanding, plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion on environmental and sustainable development issues. Contemporary economics researchers argue that effective environmental governance requires a synergistic approach through the media ecosystem to raise public awareness of sustainable development issues. The media have become an integral aspect of everyday life, providing information and serving as a basis for people to make choices and decisions. This paper presents the results of a study carried out on the behaviour of young people in the media ecosystem and the factors influencing the decision-making process. The study was based on theoretical research of documentary sources and digital materials, analysis of statistical data. The analysis of survey data was used to analyse the factors influencing the behaviour and decision-making of young people in Latvian comprehensive schools in the digital environment, including their perception of factors influencing sustainable development. The findings show that the contemporary media ecosystem plays a significant role in people's lives, influencing their behaviour and decisions. The data will be used in the next stages of the research, where the behaviour of all age groups in the media ecosystem, factors influencing decision-making and perceptions of sustainable development will be explored.

Modernist Literature in the Modern Media Ecology

Chapter 3 analyzes a media ecology approach to transnational media flow in East Asia. It attempts to look at the role of media as a crucial agent in the formation and expansion of the Korean Wave as a determinant for transnational media flows, it considers the media environment as the “foreground” (in McLuhan’s term) of the Korean Wave and seeks to understand it from a media-ecology perspective. This chapter focuses on the media environment as a context that has mediated transnational media distribution and consumption in East Asia in the 20 years since the late 1990s. Rather than examining the functional role of a specific medium, she focuses on the changing media environments in terms of inter-media relations between old and new media and people’s everyday media system and how they have shaped “the speed, scale, and pattern” of transnational media experiences.

The media ecosystem is undergoing radical changes in the digital age, enabling human or human intelligence to interact with artificial intelligence (AI). In this paper, the authors analyze how AI technologies (machine learning, algorithms) are transforming both media and journalism, or what impact they are having in this field. Against the background of mapping the situation of AI integration in the media ecosystem and in journalism, their aim is to identify, within the current application of its capabilities, both the ambivalence in the very approach to its application (integration, use in practice), and to outline the specific positives and negatives, or the risks that it brings to the field, specifically in an ethical perspective. Finally, in this context, identify the status of AI with respect to the issue of accountability. The authors seek to contribute to the discourse on the sustainable development of the media, or the media ecosystem and journalism in the era of digital technologies, underlining the role and responsibility of the human subject in the application of AI and its associated tools, with respect to the societal expectations of its benefits (in media and journalistic practice).

Selective exposure is a complex phenomenon, and this study takes a systematic approach to reviewing its manifestations in the changing environment of new media. Following the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review process was carried out across various databases and found 20 scholarly articles from Google Scholar, ProQuest, CNKI and Scopus for detailed analysis. This analysis, in turn, investigates the contextual evolution, motivational underpinnings, and consequences of selective exposure on both individual and societal behavior. The findings capture important transitions from conventional online spaces to algorithmically-modulated social media settings, extending the focus from politics to a wider range of public topics including health and environmental communication. Consequently, the framework suggests the interaction of cognitive dissonance, group dynamics, and technology as motivational drivers of selective exposure, highlighting the conclusion that selective exposure is the result of influences by the individual as an agent, their group affiliations, and structures. Take selective exposure as both an independent and dependent variable for inclusion within conceptual frameworks is identified, and its role as a mediating and moderating variable is identified reflecting both theoretical suitability and empirical importance. In addition to solidifying similar narratives through action and interaction, findings also suggest modes of engagement with alternate information sources—reflecting both negative consequences for agreement but potential for constructive debate—highlighting complex impacts of selective exposure across both media consumption and a more polarized society. This study shows the relevance of selective exposure research for the understanding of media behaviors, cognitive processes, and sociopolitical dynamics for future research as well its implications as sensitive to media literacy programs and policy interventions. Further, future research would benefit from interdisci­plinary approaches and adaptive methodologies to grapple with the challenges of selective exposure in polarized, technology-driven media ecosystems. This review also aim to advance theory, inform policy, and create a more egalitarian and equitable digital information ecosystem.

What are the possibilities for a political magazine in the new media environment? This article addresses that question through a study of the London-based art and politics magazine Mute, an experimental publishing venture that currently exists as a ‘hybrid’ of Web and print platforms. The politics in question resides not only in the magazine’s content, but throughout its media form. For Mute’s coverage of the evolving political and aesthetic capacities of new media has intersected with an insistent self-critique and remodelling of its magazine form, a reflexive orientation it set out in its ‘hybrid publishing’ manifesto, ‘Ceci n’est pas un magazine’. Drawing on an interview with the magazine’s editor and directors and employing concepts of ‘media ecology’ and ‘embodied text’, the article explores Mute’s hybrid media form through its publishing platforms, participatory mechanisms, aesthetic styles, commissioning practices, temporal modes, and commercial structures.

Media ecology introduced a fresh perspective to media studies, previously dominated by content analysis, effects research, ideologies, and flux studies. This approach allows us to understand media in a non-linear manner, seeing them as constructors of our everyday contexts rather than mere tools for specific purposes. Despite this shift, classical media ecology often views media as information transmitters for discrete human beings, rooted in modern humanist rationalism. This article suggests that a posthumanist approach to media ecology can help overcome modern anthropocentrism by studying the mutual ontogenesis between humans and their media environments. This change offers a fruitful framework for studying contemporary media, characterized by ubiquity, hyperconnection, and planetary-scale computing. The analysis emphasizes the interdependence between humans, technology, and the environment, highlighting the diminishing human agency amid automated systems and ubiquitous computing.

The confusion of the present and the prophesied future with the past, as well as the combination of poetry and publicistics, political ideology and literature, rational and emotional, or different genres, point to the interplay of multiple-factor hybrids whose research is facilitated by the concept of media ecology. In 1920–30s’ media ecology, the imaginative texts of the poet and political publicist Edvarts Virza stand out in the unquestionable resistance to urbanization, technology and industrialization trends, to liberalism, parliamentarianism and individualism, everything that today is defined as the cultural indications of globalism. He has expressed resistance to globalism and internationalism, or cosmopolitanization, with three discourses of opinion journalism characterized by cult features – the creation of traditional peasantry and sacralized cult of ancestors, glorification of the authoritarian power of a wise and neat landowner/manager, and national or Latvian Latvia’s emotional, imaginative and inspiring communication. With these three poetic discourses of media environment – traditional agrarianism, authoritarianism and national discourse – Virza is to be recognized as influential creator of 1920–30s’ Latvian media environment and the descriptor of imaginativeley expressive of this environment, considered controversial then and now.

Media ecology, an academic field developed by Neil Postman, explores the impact of media on individuals, audiences, and culture. It posits that media is not only a means of communication but also shapes the way individuals think, perceive, and interact socially. Media ecology is the study of how individuals are affected by media environments and the transformative power of these environments on social structure. In this regard, the processes of cultivating behaviours, attitudes, and values through media content exhibit a substantial overlap with Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. In particular, learning through observation, modelling, and reinforcement is a frequently encountered form of learning through media tools. The continuous media exposure of the media ecology increases the possibility of individuals internalising and repeating the behaviours they observe and creates certain models. This study explores the arguments of both theories in the context of mass media. It particularly focuses on the impact of mass media on children and how model-based learning occurs. This study analyses how Türkiye’s National Technology Initiative is represented in TRT-co-produced animated films. The animated film Rafadan Tafya: Galaktik Tayfa (2023) was analysed using sociological film analysis. The subjects, events, and developments discussed in the film represent Türkiye’s recent technical and scientific advancements, informing children about these advancements.

The Technological Gaze