🐰 Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

Greetings, dear newsletter subscribers!

As I mentioned last week, I am posting a clip from my interview with Professor Lance Strate, which you can watch here. I am also including a transcript of this section of the interview, below.

Also, a reminder that I hope to begin our public book study of Amusing Ourselves to Death in earnest next week, on April 24!

From my interview with Professor Lance Strate:

Herman:

What is “Media Ecology”? Would you consider René Girard a media ecologist?

Lance Strate:

I view media ecology as an open system and a network—much like how we think of the Internet as a network. There are no strict boundaries where you can say someone is or isn’t part of media ecology. Instead, people might be closer to the core or further away from it. We can make distinctions between types of studies or discussions that are more or less media ecological.

So, I wouldn’t categorize someone strictly as “is” or “isn’t” a media ecologist. For example, I know individuals who consider René Girard a media ecologist. It almost becomes a kind of game—asking, “Do you think this person is a media ecologist?” You can then make an argument based on what that person has written or spoken about.

There is support among media ecologists to include René Girard, though he’s not very significant in my own work. That’s just my perspective.

I often say there is no single thing called media ecology. There’s what media ecology means to me and what it means to you. Everyone has their own idea, and while these ideas overlap significantly, they’re not identical.

Herman:

What are some of the main principles of “Media Ecology”?

Lance Strate:

First, I would clarify what we mean by media ecology, especially since the term is often used differently in journalism today—where “media ecology” might just refer to the interaction among different communication media like digital platforms. For us, media ecology is a field of study, an intellectual tradition, and a mode of inquiry.

When we talk about studies, authors, and thinkers as media ecological, I always go back to Neil Postman’s original definition. He described it as the study of media as environments. I have a small footnote here because technically, media and environments are synonymous—though we don’t usually think of them that way. A medium is something that surrounds and pervades us at every turn: fish swim in the medium of water; we move through the medium of air; we see through the medium of light.

So media ecology is also the study of environments—or the study of environments as media. The rooms we inhabit, buildings, cities, streets—all these are media that shape how we think, act, communicate, and organize ourselves.

You can say it both ways: it’s the study of media as environments or simply the study of media for themselves. Most people study economics or politics and their effects on media; we focus on media themselves as prime movers. This also means studying environments as environments since these terms can be interchangeable.

For me, the key point is looking at things environmentally. Take a smartphone: it’s not just a gadget you hold in your hand and choose whether or not to use. Instead, it’s an environment in which smartphones exist. Even if you never touch one, you are still influenced and shaped by the smartphone environment. We often say we “go online” or “go on the web.” Even software like Microsoft Word is called a word-processing environment because we enter into it.

The essential idea is to think about all the ways we influence and alter our environment continually—how society shapes us back in return. Thinking environmentally or ecologically means understanding this dynamic feedback loop.

The fundamental question for media ecology is about how we do things—the way we do them has a huge impact on what we do. If you’re familiar with Eastern spirituality, think of the Dao (“the way”). The method or medium shapes what is possible and what isn’t. It constrains some choices and opens up others.

In turn, this shapes who we are and our environment. So, to me, the core question in media ecology is about the means—the method—the medium.

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Have a blessed weekend, Happy Easter to those celebrating, and I'll be in touch again next week as we begin our book study together!

Warmly,

Herman