What is media ecology?

So, I'm still slowly adding pieces of theo|digital. A copy of my thesis?  Yeah, still not here.  I keep putting off the step of formatting for web and posting it, despite the repeated requests.  But today I decided it would be fun to take a quick hack at the "what is media ecology?" page.  This probably isn't the most carefully edited definition of media ecology--more like the explanation I'd give you off the top of my head.  But it's not a bad start from someone trying to understand it. -----------------------

What is Media Ecology?

The world that God created understandably troubles us today. … Some are inclined to blame our present woes on technology. Yet there are paradoxes here. Technology is artificial, but for a human being there is nothing more natural than to be artificial.

Walter Ong  (Faith and Contexts, Vol 1, 1:7.)

Media ecology is the study of communication technologies as cultural environments. If that doesn't make your heart race (like me), then don't worry: there's still hope. In the infancy of the digital information age, it's hard to imagine a field of study that's more important ; or that can better explain why the new edition of the iPhone is messing with our minds.

Come on, we all know its messing with our minds.

Steve Jobs aside, there are some names to know. We'll start with three.

The first is Neil Postman. The New York University professor was the first to create a doctoral program in "media ecology"-- at New York University in 1970. The term had biology class in mind: think of that round glass petri dish you used to grow bacteria. The "medium" was the substance placed in the dish to grow the "culture." In this case, it'd be like eye-dropping mini iPhones (iDropping - ha) into a dish of popular culture, and seeing what grows. (jump to the rest...)