Neil postman describes media ecology in so far as “how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival” (Postman; Media Ecology Association). What I find interesting about this quote is the latter – how does our “interaction with media” help or hinder our survival in this world.
For example Levinson’s (1997) description of the development of the alphabet allows us to understand it in terms of ecology. The alphabet was a revolutionary medium that changed our interrelation with each other and the world, as it became a medium that allowed “the representation of that which was not representable” (1997, pg 17). There was also a sudden power shift – or power struggle maybe (the elites still remained in control as the literate group in society it just opened doors for others also) – as usually the elites were the only people in society with access to information. Similarly today with the inclusion of blogging, which allows anyone to represent their thoughts that may have formerly be unrepresented. Therefore we see that with the introduction of new governing media forms it changes the nature of ecology, however the democratization of knowledge and thoughts seems to remain constant.
Thinking about ecologies in terms of technological determinism, then the “interrelations of being and things” (Fuller, 2005, p 2) puts media as the most important aspect. This seems to undermine the fact that these interrelationships are based upon both the culture and the technology reacting or depending on each other. Therefore media seems to also depend on us. An example of this can be seen in the digital networking society that we willingly take part in, in our everyday lives. We can tweet, status update, blog and utilise these technologies in so many ways because of new media technologies. This network society has allowed not only for a proliferation of digital media and global communication networks but also allowed for a change in our interrelationship with these aspects of it as well as with each other. These new media forms and our access to them have introduced new ways of interaction with each other as well as these new forms of communication.
