http://www.media-ecology.org

Media Ecology is an emerging field of study about media technology. According to Neil Postman, Media Ecology can be defined as an approach to research “media as environments”.

The term “ecology” in Media Ecology is not identical with “ecology” often emphasized in understanding of TEK. While being aware of the difference, it is interesting to see how Western media scholars appropriated the term “ecology” and launched a new approach to the media and technology.

Media ecology, which was established by Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman among others, understands media technology as an environment that re-defines human behavioral patterns. From this approach, the Internet is not simply a conduit, yet it in itself involves an epistemological, phenomenological, and informational shift; the Internet would bring about a new horizon of human cognition, intelligence, and behaviors, which can be compared with the emergence and dissemination of print culture in Western modernity (Carr, 2010).

Reference: N. Carr (2010). The Sallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, N.N.Norton.

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