This week’s readings attempted to grapple the concept of media ecology’ what it defines, describes, involves and to what degree has it impacted on human affairs. The term itself, from my understanding was loosely defined by Guattari’s rationalisation of an ecology compromising of “three inter-connected networks existing at the scales of mind, society and the environment.” Despite the statement being made before the introduction and mass utilisation of World Wide Web, it is more relevant and reflected in the nature of today’s media ecology. Today’s media environment is compromised of convergent and divergent technologies that require active participation, engagement and a collaborative effort in order for information and messages to be created and transmitted in society. The traditional hierarchical model of the production and dissemination of news and information (in other words the distribution of power), has instead been replaced by more of an ‘ecosophical model…That requires an epistemological system of analysis based on an understanding of non-linear systems governed by feedback loops and non-linear causality.'(Anon, 2008 The Three Ecologies-Felix Guattari) Now more so than ever do we see a more complex and dynamic relationship between beings, objects, processes etc and the more interrelated and involved our relationships/ interactions become the more dependent we become on them. For example if we look at the complexity of today’s computer programs, technologies and the techniques by which we use them they have become far more complex in nature and functionality. Our dependency on these objects and processes has become a necessity in order for beings to keep up with the ebb and flow of society, whether it be on a micro ( personal/social) or macro (economical, political) level. This challenges the assumption that was touched on in the week three’s lecture of our ideas about who we are that is ‘based upon a clear separation between: technology and nature, dead media archives and life, our own interior thoughts and the exteriorization of these through technology.’ This assumption neglects to acknowledge that any relationship exists between those binary oppositions and therefore assumes that our identities and perceptions are formed isolated from the world that consists of knowable objects or things, a relation that philosopher Martin Buber termed as the inescapable ‘I-It’ relation (Ich und Du, 1923).
Neil Postman lends a definition of media ecology that acknowledges not only the different elements and their interactions that form media- ecosystem but also the effects of such interactions “it looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception… The word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people” (Postman N, 1970).
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