Week 3 - Media Ecologies, Social Ecologies, Other Ecologies

A significant part of contemporary cultural life is how interlinked and overlapped things are with each other. But exactly how do these processes and events come together, especially in regards to media? Through time and technological change such as the industrialisation of the world beginning in the 1800's, processes have been combined together to not only create a better and more efficient way of living but also to signify that huge ideas in the shift of the world through time can impact greatly on social and cultural changes. A good example of this is the introduction of the camera in the late 1800's and how it evolved and changed the way people not only were photographed but also how it was used to further the development of these new technologies. It allowed people to interact with them and familliarise themselves as opposed to being scared of new technological flows of development.

It is also crucial to realise that almost always the introduction of one technology becomes the stepping stone for an improvement of it in the future and also the mixing of media ecologies, all of which are combined to improve our ways of life. Photographer Etienne Jules Marley used film, a camera and a film projector to catch unstable movement in photos, and highlights the overlapping of media forms due to the proliferation of media through space and time (Murphie 2011: 14 Mar) They are all part of media ecologies, and how they affect media change in cultural contexts , highlighting the evolution of these processes and practices. Also how the overlapping of ecologies constructs a new influential technologies.

In some respect, it seems as though media ecologies possess some characteristics of being technologically deterministic in that their introduction in society causes so much change that it affects and changes routine for society, people and culture. These affects are traced back thousands of years, to ancient Egypt where hieroglyphics were used to reinforce memory and became a benchmark for the evolution into the Phoenician alphabet in conveying monotheistic ideas as a part of the information revolution (Levinsen 1997: 3) This media ecology highlighted the power of memory and the conveyance of ideas to affect literary change and show how media communications are connected to highlight the importance of technological change and convergeancy and how through time causes significant changes to society.

References

Levinson, Paul (1997). 'The First Digital Medium' in Soft Edge ; a natural history and future of the information revolution. London: Routledge. 3-5.

Murphie, A. (2011) Advanced Media Issues Lecture. 14 March