Who developed media ecology theory?

Media ecology examples

I have recently been researching a very particular theory related to the media that I would like to share in this forum. It is “media ecology,” which dates back to the 1960s and is still relevant today.

However, McLuhan’s story could be the subject of another article. Returning to the theory of “media ecology”, it can be summarized in two metaphors.    The one that proposes the “media as environments” and the one that conceives them “as species”.

Bringing this metaphor to the present day, we can see, for example, that the appearance of the cell phone in the media environment has been generating needs in people until today. To the point that for many people today it is inconceivable not to have a cell phone at hand, which they consider practically as a vital organ, essential to be able to develop with the world.

You may also be interested in: How did Billie Eilish become famous? – The best PR strategyThe second metaphor to explain media ecology is the one that establishes that the media are like species, which live in the same ecosystem and establish relationships with each other.

Ecology of the scolari media

In 1970, Earth Day was celebrated for the first time and, with it, ecology became fashionable, biology and sustainability crossed the social sciences and humanities, giving rise to hybrid disciplines. The environmental metaphor viewed the media as an organism, as a natural system subject to biological principles. In this way, the metaphor acquired a performative character and became a way of making discourses, a conversational network, a speech act, a discursive mapping and, as Carlos Scolari says, a communicational theory.

Scolari himself responds to the question of what researchers feed on by publishing the most Scolari book, without being his own; that is, he offers a compendium of ten texts of transmedia reflection in which he explores the study of the media as environments, the basic premise of media ecology. In the texts of the founding fathers, disciples and new generations of followers of the movement formed by Neil Postman in 1968, Carlos shares the epistemological premises that have shaped much of his intellectual work.

Media ecology: mcluhan

Media ecology is a metaphorical theory based on the study of the interrelation of the media, their applied technologies, the cultural practices consequent to the systematization of these media and the changes, both biological and socio-environmental, that generate the emergence, evolution, hybridization or extinction of communicational interfaces. These theoretical concepts were proposed by Marshall McLuhan in 1964, and then formally expounded in 1968 by Neil Postman.

Media ecology is a complex and systemic metadiscipline, whose object of study is the changes that technologies and media have produced in societies throughout history. Media ecology analyzes how the media affect human opinion, understanding, sensation and value, and how our interaction with the media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content and impact on people. An environment is a complex system of messages that imposes on human beings ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Ecology in the media

Media ecology is a metaphorical theory based on the study of the interrelation of the media, their applied technologies, the cultural practices consequent to the systematization of these media and the changes, both biological and socio-environmental, that generate the emergence, evolution, hybridization or extinction of communicational interfaces. These theoretical concepts were proposed by Marshall McLuhan in 1964, and then formally expounded in 1968 by Neil Postman. Ecology in this context refers to the environments in which media are functionally developed to correspond to given social practices.[1][2] Adaptation is the process in which media are functionally developed to correspond to given social practices.[1][2] Ecology is the process of adaptation.

Adaptation is the process in which a medium adapts to its habitat in the face of external or internal structural changes, making its utility more appropriate to the environment. An example is the adaptation to digital interfaces of journalistic conglomerates, expanding their formats of newspaper-paper, newscast-television, among others, to capture consumers they could not reach with traditional media. During the adaptation, some media may lose their original function within the historical plane and become new structures.