Foundational Lit in Media Ecology | Thesis Chapter 3
I thought I'd be able to post these in relatively quick succession, but again have been too busy to do so. This week I'll try to get up several more, starting here with Chapter 3 (See more here). This chapter of my thesis is the second of my two literature reviews. Chapter 2 is a survey of the doctrine of scripture through time. Chapter 3 is my due diligence on the communications theory group of media ecology, Both are huge topics, so all I could do as I wrote these was worry about how much I was leaving out.
If I remember correctly, I think I cut 5-10 pages from this chapter, trying to keep only the points that were too huge to miss, or points that I would use later on. This was tough to do... because although I didn't write the paper in chapter order, it was written over the course of a year, and was occasionally recharted during the process. And this stuff can be difficult to hold in your head all at once! For instance, I introduce McLuhan's tetrad (an evaluation grid he created) in this chapter because I planned to use it later. When wound up cutting the later analysis, I forgot to return and cut this portion of the introduction.
Anyway, this chapter is a quick tour by way of key names: Marshall McLuhan then Walter Ong, then briefer treatments of Neil Postman, and James Carey. For McLuhan and Ong, I note their method and also their personal theological biases found elsewhere in their writings. Its interesting that these two huge media ecologists were both Catholic theorists.
