McLuhan on Shakespeare and Shakespeare as McLuhan

Over 400 years ago, during the early days of the print revolution, William Shakespeare offered insights into the media environment of his times. Though he was a poet and playwright, his observations were strikingly similar to those of Marshall McLuhan in the twentieth century. In every one of his plays there appear media references: books, letters, reading and writing. This essay examines how he viewed the impact of literacy and printing on both individuals and the society at large.

Remediating McLuhan, Richard Cavell (2016)

Review of: Remediating McLuhan, Richard Cavell (2016) Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 201 pp., ISBN 978-1-58423-582-8, h/bk, $110

McLuhan | Havelock | metaphysics

The McLuhan ⇔ Havelock correspondence turns on a question about the meaning(s) of events that transpired in Greece during the Archaic and High-Classical period – perhaps the only time and circumstance in which the metaphysical and independent human being had been able to manifest themself amidst the vast amorphous resonance of tribal culture. Here, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary issue of Explorations in Media Ecology, this article uses the correspondence between two leading figures in the Media Ecology (anti-)canon as a leaping off point to talk about metaphysics and media. The focus is McLuhan. This article offers a portrait that shows the significance, if not centrality, of (Christian) metaphysics to McLuhan’s project, and how his metaphysical commitments inform and shape his ethics, politics and pedagogy. This article also makes the claims that: (1) McLuhan, in his theory and practice, asserted the primacy of mediation with respect to thinking about being and knowing, and (2) McLuhan’s insertion of media into metaphysics stands as an invitation to revisit and revise the history of metaphysics, especially when, under digital conditions, the merging of all pasts and presents is well advanced.

Making visible the invisible: Exploring McLuhan’s figure/ground in digital citizenship education

Figure and ground are analytical concepts used to discuss how some elements of a lived situation dominate perception, while others remain in the background. This applies not least to media and research from the medium theoretical tradition as well as later scholarship on media infrastructures, which have been keen to explore the taken for granted or invisible aspects of the media landscape. In media education, however, there is still a tendency to focus on the figure of digital media by treating media technologies as tools or to focus on the critical evaluation of media content. This article draws on McLuhan’s co-authored textbook City as Classroom to suggest a pedagogical turn towards the ground of the internet. Based on concrete examples from middle school digital citizenship education, the article shows how a focus on the ground of digitalization actualizes topics such as environmental concerns, global inequalities and data privacy. These topics are conceptualized and discussed through the environmental/spatial metaphors clouds, exhaust and architecture.

Hey Google: A thematic analysis of Twitter users’ comments on the privacy of AI devices in the home

The advancement of technology has been accompanied by the rise of data breaches and privacy concerns. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual assistants into society has led to smart homes that enable users to complete commands instantly. This project uses the diffusion of innovation theory to explain why consumers adopt the technology. A thematic analysis was conducted on Twitter news stories, and open coding showed a strong negative reaction to the stories, with users concluding that privacy was too essential to purchase a virtual assistant for their home. These findings have implications for the future rate of adoption of AI and virtual assistant technology.

An Explorations in Media Ecology appreciative inquiry: Onward and upward

This article combines appreciative inquiry (AI) as well as digital object interviewing and other constructs from the field to examine Explorations in Media Ecology (EME) in its online format. It provides an in-depth review of the journal and its issues produced over the past twenty years. The article surveys EME’s editorial advances and transitions, its coverage of the media environment, its interdisciplinary range, along with its demographics and reach. Throughout this article, EME’s digital publication speaks for itself describing its own strengths and opportunities as manifested since its origination. Along the way, this article utilizes anecdotes and quotes from EME’s contributors that illuminate and support the survey results. Finally, this article through these quotes, gives EME a voice; it offers suggestions to build on its strengths and make use of opportunities for an onward and upward future.

The energic economy of cyberchronotopia

As social media, virtual reality, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, mobile computing, cloud computing, virtual collaboration platforms and other new technologies become an integral part of our life, more and more of us are facing a practical issue: insufficiency of psychic energy. Approaching the cyberneticization of the human condition from the perspective of psychic energy makes for a sorely needed critical intervention. This article reveals the vampiric nature of cyberspacetime, looks into vitalistic philosophy and spiritual praxes for coping strategies, and calls for homo ludens to rise above apparatuses of capture and conserve psychic energy for negentropic endeavours, psychosomatic events and spiritual awakening. It proceeds with the assumption that news about one’s autopoiesis and becoming is the most important news. Part of the motive is to demonstrate media theory and time-tested spiritual praxes as equipment for living.