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Chapter 26: Media Ecology Theory
Chapter 26
Media Ecology Theory
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
• Communication theorists often accounted for technology in their theories, but until
recently, rarely embraced it as a fundamental feature in their theories.
• Unlike Social Information Processing Theory, theorists interested in media environment
look at the entire “mediated picture”—from its history to how it affects people’s
perceptions or feelings, among other areas.
• Professor Randall’s embrace of technology and its effect upon both her professional and
personal lives are of interest to scholars in media ecology.
• One theorist who could understand and interpret Professor Randall’s relational and
technological circumstances is Marshall McLuhan.
o In his groundbreaking book, Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan wrote about the
influence of technologies, including clocks, televisions, radios, movies, telephones,
and even roads and games.
o He suggests that people have a symbiotic relationship with mediated technology;
they create technology, and technology in turn recreates who they are.
o In essence, McLuhan feels that societies are highly dependent on mediated
technology and that a society’s social order is based on its ability to deal with that
technology.
o This theory was conceptualized over 50 years ago and, especially today, McLuhan’s
assertion about technology rings true.
o Because the theory centralizes the many types of media and views media as an
environment unto itself, scholars aptly term McLuhan’s work Media Ecology.
o The word ecology, in this sense, is simply the study of how environments influence
individuals.
▪ Media ecology is defined as the study of how media and communication
processes influence human perception, feeling, understanding, and value.
• McLuhan (1964) based much of his thinking on his mentor, Canadian political economist
Harold Adams Innis (1951).
o Innis believed that major empires in history (Rome, Greece, and Egypt) were built by
those in control of the written word.
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o Innis argued that Canadian elites used a number of communication technologies to
build their “empires.”
o Innis referred to the shaping power of technology on a society as the bias of
communication.
II. Assumptions of Media Ecology Theory
• The influence of media technology on society is the main idea behind Media Ecology
Theory. The following are the assumptions framing the theory:
o Media infuse nearly every act and action in society.
o Media fix people’s perceptions and organize their experiences.
o Media tie the world together.
• The first assumption underscores the notion that people cannot escape media in their daily
lives. Media permeate people’s very existence.
o McLuhan notes that money is really a language that communicates to a diverse
group, including farmers, engineers, plumbers, and physicians.
• A second assumption of Media Ecology Theory is that people are directly influenced by
media.
o McLuhan suggests that media are quite powerful in people’s views of the world.
▪ Consider, for instance, if television news reports that the United States is
experiencing a “moral meltdown,” people may be watching stories on child
abductions, illegal drug use, or teen pregnancies.
▪ In their private conversations, people may begin to talk about the lack of
morals in society.
▪ In fact, they may begin to live their lives according to the types of stories they
watch.
▪ People may be more suspicious of even friendly strangers, fearing they may try
to kidnap their children.
• A third assumption of Media Ecology Theory is that the media connect the world.
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o McLuhan used the phrase global village to describe how media tie the world into one
great political, economic, social, and cultural system.
o The global village of Marshall McLuhan follows the General Systems perspective.
• McLuhan’s theory relies heavily on a historical understanding of media.
o He asserts that the media of a particular time period were instrumental in organizing
societies. He identifies four distinct time periods, or epochs, in history.
III. Making Media History and Making “Sense”
• McLuhan (1962, 1964) and Quentin Fiore (McLuhan and Fiore, 1967, 1996) claim that the
media of an era define the essence of a society.
o They present four eras, or epochs, in media history, each of which corresponds to the
dominant mode of communication of the time (Sparks, 2016).
A. The Tribal Era
• According to McLuhan, during the tribal era, hearing, smell, and taste were the
dominant senses.
• This era was characterized by the oral tradition of storytelling whereby people revealed
their traditions, rituals, and values through the spoken word.
B. The Literate Era
• This epoch, emphasized by the visual sense, was marked by the introduction of the
alphabet. The eye became the dominant sensory organ.
• McLuhan and Fiore (1996) state that the alphabet caused people to look at their
environment in visual and spatial terms. Whereas the tribal era was characterized by
people speaking, the literate era was a time when written communication flourished.
• Out was storytelling; in were mathematics and other forms of analytic logic.
• People were able to get their information without help from their communities.
o This was the beginning of people communicating without the need to be face to
face.
C. The Print Era
• The invention of the printing press heralded the print era in civilization and the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
• The printing press allowed people other than the elite to gain access to information.
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• With printing, people didn’t have to rely on their memories for information as they had
to do in the past.
• McLuhan notes that mass production produces citizens who are similar to each other.
D. The Electronic Era
• The age people live in now is electronic.
• This era has returned people to a primitive-like reliance on talking to one another.
Although, some would argue that the art of conversation has really been lost (Turkle,
2015).
• The electronic era allows different communities in different parts of the world to
remain connected, a concept called the global village.
• McLuhan and Fiore (1968) theorize that a ratio of the senses is required by people,
which is a conversation of sorts between and among the senses.
• McLuhan and Fiore (1967) claim that in addition to the medium being the message, the
medium is the “massage.”
• James Morrison (2006) states that “‘the medium is the message’ because the contents of a
medium vary and may even be contradictory, but the medium’s effects remain the same, no
matter what the content” (p. 178).
V. Gauging the Temperature: Hot and Cool Media
• Hot media are described as media that demand little from a listener, reader, or viewer.
o An example of a hot medium is a movie.
o McLuhan believes that radio is a hot medium. He acknowledges that radio can serve
as background sound, as noise-level control, or for listening pleasure.
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• Unlike hot media, cool media require a high degree of participation; they are low
definition.
o Little is provided by the medium, so much has to be filled in by the listener, reader,
or viewer.
o Cool media require audiences to create meaning through high sensory and
imaginative involvement. Examples include cartoons and Facebook.
• As the 21st century continues, people need to be cautious in interpreting hot and cool
media in straightforward ways.
VI. The Circle is Complete: The Tetrad
• McLuhan developed a way to look further into the effects of technology on society. His
expansion of the theory included a thorough discussion of the laws of media.
• McLuhan’s posthumous work with his son takes into consideration the influence of the
Internet.
o Their work was an effort to bring the theory full circle: Technology affects
communication through new technology, the impact of the new technology affects
society, and the changes in society cause further changes in technology.
• McLuhan and McLuhan offer the tetrad as an organizing concept that allows scholars to
understand the past, present, and current effects of media.
• McLuhan and McLuhan offer four laws, phrased as questions, to understand technology:
(1) What do media enhance? (2) What do media make obsolete? (3) What do media
retrieve? (4) What do media reverse?
A. Enhancement
• The first law of media is enhancement; that is, media enhance or amplify society.
• The Internet has enhanced society in different ways.
o First, it has the potential to enhance a number of senses, including sight and
sound. Second, the existence of the Internet has enhanced the accessibility of
information.
eventually render something obsolete or out of date.
• Television made radio obsolete, although many people continue to turn to radio each
day while they drive.
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• The Internet, too, has brought about obsolescence. For example, the global village now
exists thanks to the Internet.
C. Retrieval
• The third law is retrieval, meaning that media recover or restore something that was
once lost.
• Television, for instance, restored the importance of the visual that radio did not achieve,
but that was once in face-to-face conversations.
D. Reversal
• When too many constraints exist on a medium, it will “overheat” and become
ineffective. Reversal contains characteristics of the system from which it arose.
• People can DVR television programs and what was once seen by millions of people at
the same time is reversed into private “performances.” Television, then, reversed into
the early days of the print era when people could consume media privately.
VII. Carrying the McLuhan Banner: Postman and Meyrowitz
• Although score of scholars identify and accept the tenets of Media Ecology Theory, two
influential scholars are of particular note. Neil Postman and Joshua Meyrowitz were
dedicated scholarly followers of McLuhan.
o Postman encourages changes to the educational system by stating that it needs to be
revitalized.
▪ He believes the media environment helps shape children’s lives.
▪ The conflation of the child and adult worlds is an ongoing concern for
Postman.
▪ He believes that culture is subservient to the invisible and visible.
o Postman coined the term technopoly, which means that people live in a culture in
which technology dominates their thinking and behaviors.
▪ People trust that technology will bring them safety and salvation, and seem to
lose any sense of humility, discipline, and rationality regarding their reliance
• Joshua Meyrowitz’s (1985) research interconnects with McLuhan’s work.
o Meyrowitz’s No Sense of Place ushered in a unique way of thinking related to space.
He argues that space is more than physical (Dresner, 2006). Meyrowitz contends that
the influence that communication has on the situation also needs to be considered.
o He draws on sociology research to conclude that media have brought about a blurring
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of formerly distinct roles or places.
o Wherever one is now—at home, at work, or in the car—one may be in touch and
tuned in” (p. 308).
VIII. Integration, Critique, and Closing
• Marshall McLuhan’s ideas are provocative, and at times, have been both unilaterally
dismissed and embraced. Some have labeled his thinking “McLuhanacy” (Gordon, 1982),
while others feel his writing is equivalent to “genre bending” (Carey, 1998).
• McLuhan’s work and reputation, however, have been invoked with considerable regard.
o Wired magazine named him their “patron saint,” and Life magazine called him the
“Oracle of the Electronic Age.”
o A concentration in McLuhan studies exists at the University of Toronto. In addition,
there is a McLuhan newsletter, the International Journal of McLuhan Studies,
symposia on McLuhan’s research, a McLuhan festival, a McLuhan reading club, and
even a secondary high school in Canada named the Marshall McLuhan Catholic
Secondary School.
A. Testability
• Media Ecology Theory (MET) has been criticized because many of its concepts are
difficult to understand, thereby making testability of the theory challenging and, indeed,
nearly impossible (Gordon and Willmarth, 2012).
• Critics have blasted MET as “overly optimistic” about the role of technology in society
(Baran and Davis, 2016).
o They believe that McLuhan put too much emphasis on how much technology
influences society, making the very foundation of the theory rather shaky.
• George Gordon (1982) is more direct: “Not one bit of sustained and replicated scientific
evidence, inductive or deductive, has to date justified any one of McLuhan’s most
famous slogans, metaphors, or dicta” (p. 42).
• A great deal of criticism has been directed at McLuhan’s use of words and his clarity.
To some, his ideas make little sense. Some writers believe that McLuhan failed to
define his words carefully and used too much exaggeration.
B. Heurism
• One indicator of the heuristic value of MET is the fact that there is now a Media
Ecology Association (media-ecology.org).
o This organization is dedicated to promoting the theory in both practical and
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theoretical ways, thereby ensuring the theory’s visibility.
• Scholars have provided a comprehensive understanding of the theory and have
discussed the theory’s influential pioneers (Lum, 2006) and some have “taken up
Classroom Activities
1. Technological Memories
Objective: To increase students’ understanding of how technology has evolved over time
Materials: None
Directions:
a. Have students interview someone who was born in the early twentieth century (i.e.,
between the 1920s and the 1940s). The individual could be a parent, a grandparent,
or a senior member of a family.
b. Students should prepare a set of questions concerning how technology has changed
over the years and how these changes have influenced human communication. Be
sure to have students ask their interviewees about technologies like the telephone, the
television, the typewriter, and the tape recorder. Students should be encouraged to
share their insights about today’s technologies with their interviewees (e.g.,
smartphones, MP3 players, computers, and tablets).
time.
2. Going Global
Objective: To teach students about the global village using a hands-on approach
Materials: Internet access
Directions:
a. Ask students to work in small groups and visit various websites that cover world
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events. Students might consult the websites of the Cable News Network (CNN), the
United Nations, the New York Times, or the government webpages of nations like
Israel, Russia, or the United States.