CHAPTER 25
MEDIA ECOLOGY
Outline
I. Introduction.
A. Ecologists study the environment, how people interact with it, and the way these
interactions result in change.
B. Media ecologists study media environments, seeking to understand how people
interact with media and how those interactions shape our culture and our daily
experiences.
II. The medium is the message.
A. We’re accustomed to thinking that people change because of the messages they
consume.
B. McLuhan blurred the distinction between the message and the medium.
C. When McLuhan said, “the medium is the message,” he wanted us to see that
III. The challenge of media ecology.
A. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge
of the way media work as environments.
B. All environments are inherently intangible and interrelated.
C. An environment is not a thing; it is the intricate association of many things.
1. Invisibility of environments
a. We have trouble recognizing “the way media work as environments’ because
2. Complexity of environments
a. Research on media ecology is rather sparse because it takes up the
challenge of trying to understand the interplay between all of these things in
IV. A media analysis of human history.
A. McLuhan divided all human history into four periods, or epochs—a tribal age, a
literate age, a print age, and an electronic age.
2. McLuhan believed the transitions (shaded in gray in Figure 25–1) took 300 to
400 years to complete.
B. The tribal age: An acoustic place in history
1. The senses of hearing, touch, taste, and smell were more advanced than
visualization. McLuhan wrote about the “sensory balance” of the tribal age—a
2. McLuhan claimed that “primitive” people led richer and more complex lives than
3. People acted with more passion and spontaneity.
C. The age of literacy: A visual point of view.
2. Literacy moved people from collective tribal involvement to private detachment.
4. Literacy encouraged logical, linear thinking, and fostered mathematics, science,
and philosophy.
5. When oppressed people learned to read, they became independent thinkers.
D. The print age: Prototype of the Industrial Revolution.
1. McLuhan argued that the most important aspect of movable type was its ability
to reproduce the same text over and over again.
3. The development of fixed national languages produced nationalism.
4. Concurring with this new sense of unification was a countering sense of
separation and aloneness.
E. The electronic age: The rise of the global village.
2. Whereas the book extended the eye, electronic circuitry extends the central
nervous system.
4. Linear logic is less important in the electronic society; we focus on what we feel.
F. The digital age? A wireless Global Village
1. The digital age is wholly electronic.
3. Instead of mass consciousness, which McLuhan viewed rather favorably, we
have the emergence of a tribal warfare mentality
4. Media scholar Brian Ott claims Twitter has altered the nature of public discourse
by demanding simplicity, promoting impulsivity, and fostering incivility.
V. A source of inspiration for McLuhan’s ideas: His Catholic faith.
A. McLuhan grew up in a Presbyterian family but converted to Catholicism when he was
25-years old.
B. It’s widely known that McLuhan’s ideas were informed by the work of Canadian
professor of economic history, Harold Innis.
C. But many McLuhan scholars are also quick to note the impact on his thinking of two
Jesuit priests, Walter Ong and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
D. McLuhan rarely wrote or talked publicly about his faith: “I deliberately keep
VI. Ethical reflection: Postman’s Faustian bargain.
A. Neil Postman believed that the forms of media regulate and even dictate what kind
of content the form of a given medium can carry.
B. Unlike McLuhan, Postman believed that the primary task of media ecology is to make
VI. Critique: How could he be right? But what if he is?
A. McLuhan’s theory suggests objectivity without scientific evidence.
B. In other words, he used an interpretive approach to make objective claims, but his
theory fails to meet most of the standard criteria used to assess either type of theory.
C. He fails to meet the standards of empirical research.
2. He offers no evidence to support his claims nor is his theory supported by
empirical research.
3. The theory can’t be tested and has limited practical utility.
D. Regarded as an interpretive theory, media ecology seems to fare somewhat better.
1. It offers a new understanding of communication phenomena.
2. As for aesthetic appeal, McLuhan was superb at crafting memorable phrases,
3. He made no effort to reform society and chose not to clarify his values.
E. We believe that all students of media should be conversant with his ideas and have
some awareness of the impact he’s had in the past, much of which continues today.
Key Names and Terms
Symbolic environment
The socially-constructed, sensory world of meanings.
Marshall McLuhan
The former director of the Center for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto
who championed an ecological view as the key to understanding media.
Media
Generic term for all human-invented technology that extends the range, speed, or
channels of communication.
Medium
Technology
According to McLuhan, human inventions that enhance communication.
Tribal Age
An acoustic era; a time of community because the ear is the dominant sense organ.
Literate Age
A visual era; a time of private detachment because the eye is dominant sense organ.
Print Age
A visual era; mass produced books usher in the industrial revolution and nationalism,
yet individuals are isolated.
Electronic Age
An era of instant communication; a return of the global village with the all–at-once
environment of sound and touch.
Global village
A worldwide electronic community where everyone knows everyone’s business and all
are somewhat testy.
Faustian bargain
A deal with the Devil; selling your soul for temporary earthly gain.
Principal Changes
The content of this chapter has been edited for clarity and readability. New research has been
integrated on the Twitter phenomenon to extend and illustrate the theory to the new media
environment. Discussion of McLuhan’s inspiration based on his Catholic faith has been further
developed to show its impact on his theoretical commitments. Lastly, the critique has been
revised to show the liabilities of his theory when using empirical standards and its (relative)
strengths as viewed from an interpretive perspective.
Kick-off Questions & Interaction Starters
• Think back to your childhood. What childhood memories are attached to technology?
What TV shows did you watch, and how did you watch them? What video games did you
play? What communication technology did you use to talk to others? How is that
different from elementary school kids growing up today?
Suggestions for Discussion
The quotable McLuhan
McLuhan’s writing is often obscure and nonlinear, yet it is also trenchant and highly
quotable in places. (In fact, he and Aristotle are the only theorists featured in A First Look at
Communication Theory to earn a place in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.) To supplement the
excerpts from McLuhan in the chapter, you may wish to bring in additional selections from a
text such as Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, MIT Press, 1994. Consider, for
example, this eloquent warning from the first chapter:
The American stake in literacy as a technology or uniformity applied to every level of
education, government, industry, and social life is totally threatened by the electric
Here are his prophetic comments about “educational” television:
How about Educational Television? . . . Whether there ever will be TV in the classroom
is a small matter. The revolution has already taken place at home. TV has changed our
sense-lives and our mental processes. . . . Mere classroom use could not extend its
influence. (331-32)
Quotes such as these will give your students a good sense of McLuhan’s power as a writer.
The medium is the massage
McLuhan’s language play can be observed in the phrase “the medium is the massage,”
suggesting that television is rough on its viewers. Since puns are often complexly layered, it
may be interesting to speculate with your students about what else McLuhan might mean here
Faustian bargain
As discussed in Postman’s critique, the challenge of new technology is that there is an
exchange one makes and, sometimes, we’re not exactly aware what we’re giving up in order to
gain something. “A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes it
destroys more than it creates. But, it’s never one-sided.”
The term “Faustian bargain” is drawn from the 16th century German folktale of Faust.
In it, the intelligent and acclaimed but bored Faust makes a deal with Mephistopheles. He is
given magic powers temporarily in exchange for his soul. In Goethe’s version of the tale, the
bargain gives Faust powers but payment of his soul occurs at the height of human happiness;
or receive a text message. But what has all this technology cost us? Now, are we slaves to it?
People now dream of a time where they can get away from it all, which usually means being
able to turn off the cell phone and not have access to their email—“then, I’ll be relaxed.” What
have we gained and what have we lost?
Postmodern McLuhan
If students become interested in (or annoyed by) the layered, nonlinear, and often
confusing nature of McLuhan’s prose, remind them that in some cases, writing that is difficult
to understand can contribute to the long-term popularity of an author such as McLuhan. Like
the novelist James Joyce, who made a career out of complexity, ambiguity, and open–
Kennedy versus Nixon: The medium or the message
The very first presidential debate to be televised changed the nation forever and the way that
we think about our presidential candidates. The young, attractive, polished Kennedy was said
to have won the debate by those who had watched it broadcast, but those who listened to it via
radio had said Nixon won the debate. The bright lights of the television studio, bad stage
makeup, and a recent bout with the flu left Nixon looking pale, pasty, and less attractive
compared to the younger, handsome senator from Massachusetts. To the radio audience,
however, who didn’t see him, Nixon’s nondescript Californian accent won out over Kennedy’s
sharp Bostonian dialectic. However, both men talked about the economy, global security, and
McLuhan-ish questions
A good way to help your students gain an appreciation for the principles behind McLuhan’s
work is to discuss the characteristics and the ramifications of past, present, and future
• How have the smartphone, voicemail, text messaging, and email altered the way we do
business?
• Has television helped voters to make better choices?
• Is it more enlightening to read a book than to watch television?
• Has television turned the news into entertainment?
• Has Chinese writing (which is not phonetic) impeded the development of democracy in
Southeast Asia?
These are the kinds of questions that McLuhan’s work helps us ask—and attempt to answer.
Sample Application Log
Nate
Despite some of his ideas, I think McLuhan has uncovered something more important than he
gets credit for. I know for myself, that in my lifetime alone the paradigm shift from simplistic
electronics to the new huge systems and networks of computers everywhere has definitely
made the world feel like a “global village.” My own attitudes have become much more
humanitarian and less focused on the inevitable differences between me and other people of
Exercises and Activities
Instructional technology
McLuhan’s work provides an excellent theoretical context for discussing the
instructional technology currently in place in your classroom and your academic institution as a
whole. Have your students compare the teaching technology you use with that employed by
other instructors on campus. Ask them to speculate on how you could increase your
dependence on electronic communication, as well as the effects of the proposed innovations.
Can they imagine a situation in which the use of highly advanced technology would actually
erode the educational process? How would this happen? Is it happening now, and if so, how
brevity. (This may not have been a bad thing.) In addition, students did much less rewriting,
so we had to plan our initial drafts more carefully. Once the paper was typed, it was done.
Some people suggest that the endless revising that modern word processing encourages has
caused us to write in overly elaborate, labored sentences. Because it is so easy to rework our
prose, we have a tendency to second-guess ourselves, and our writing becomes convoluted
along the way. When one used an old-fashioned typewriter, on the other hand, the primary
urge was to keep it simple and move ahead. Verbal side trips, lengthy parenthetical
Internet searches = Information retrieval
You may wish to ask your students to discuss how the Internet shapes their
communication and their lives. How does the web influence how they communicate with
friends and family, shop, get the news, or research issues? What is gained and lost by relying
so heavily on search engines—typically Google—as our primary gateway to information? Given
the customization of Google, the same search when conducted by different users can produce
different results (a point the chapter on agenda-setting theory makes when discussing Eli
Pariser’s notion of filter bubbles).
Nearly every day, stories seem to break about the mining and scraping of customer
data based on their social media profiles or their Internet history. As we write this, the
relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook is a big news story, with Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress about how the social media giant uses its
McLuhan: The Pop culture figure
For a more pop culture twist on McLuhan, you might consider showing his cameo in
Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Allen’s character is waiting in line at a movie theater and overhears
others arguing about McLuhan. When Allen, as the narrator, reflects on it, McLuhan himself
enters the frame. Your students might be entertained to know McLuhan achieved such pop
Important turning points
As mentioned in the critique, McLuhan’s work is heavy in speculation, albeit well-argued
and logical, but untestable and light on the peer review process that might generate a broad
community of argument. His central thesis is that changes in communication technology have
changed the course of human history. You might try asking your students to generate a list of
other candidates for the game-changers. In McLuhan’s list, certain human innovations
purposes), antibiotics, particularly penicillin (which revolutionized medicine), optical lenses (for
magnifying and microscopic applications), paper, gunpowder, nuclear fission, air conditioning
(would Andrew want to live in Texas without it?), or semiconductors.
Part of McLuhan’s appeal was a tangible connection between the inventions on his
list—each tackled communication questions. With these alternate ideas or those you compile
with your students, you might see if you can identify a common element. How has life been
altered by the inventions? For example, what if, instead of ways we communicate, the
inventions that changed life were those that changed how we travel across space or distance?
Thus, the wheel, compass, steam engine, automobile, and rocket might play a more central
role in your list. Or, if your list centers around inventions that altered living conditions and
sickness, what would you include? Ask students to evaluate why McLuhan’s suggestions are
as (or more) valid that any other list that you might generate.
Technology and campus culture: Or, what does “the medium is the message” really mean?
ch. 10). Instead, when McLuhan said that “the medium is the message,” he was talking about
the encompassing, all-pervasive effect that our media environment has on us. Regarding
television, he wasn’t concerned with the content of any particular TV show, but rather with how
the existence of TV, as a medium, reshapes how we receive information and think about the
world. Were he alive today, we think he would likewise be unconcerned about whether people
are sending text messages to break up, to notify someone we’ll be late, to negotiate a
business deal, or just check in with a friend, and so forth. Rather, he’d consider how text
To help drive home this point, Andrew talks with his students about the communication
technology available to him as a college student in the late 90s/early 2000s. He does this by
way of a Buzzfeed article about exactly that: https://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/ill-be-there-for-
you?utm_term=.bqqBQoLQl#.miEen0mnk. (It might be worth a moment or two of reflection on
what McLuhan would say about Buzzfeed as a medium of instruction—especially given that
McLuhan’s most noteworthy interview was given to Playboy.) Some elements of the list may be
considered a bit off-color so you may want to edit it down, but it’s noteworthy that so many of
the items deal with technology: splitting landline phone bills, printing in the dorm computer lab,
signing up for classes without the Internet, and so forth. After reviewing a few items on the list,
Andrew has students break up into groups and asks them to imagine that they are 20-30 years
Further Resources
For a broad and deep introduction to the field of media ecology, see Dennis D. Cali, Mapping
Media Ecology: Introduction to the Field, Peter Lang, New York, 2017.
McLuhan fans may enjoy a book that he co-authored with his son:
Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science, University of Toronto
Press, 1988.
Theoretical considerations
Corey Anton, “‘Heating Up’ and ‘Cooling Down’: Re-appraising McLuhan’s Hot–Cool
Distinction,” Explorations in Media Ecology, Vol. 13, 2014, pp. 343-348.
Dennis D. Cali, “The sacramental view of Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong and James
Carey,” Explorations in Media Ecology, Vol. 16, 2017, pp. 139-156.
Curry Chandler, “Marshall Arts: An Inventory of Common Criticisms of McLuhan’s Media
Studies,” Explorations in Media Ecology, Vol. 10, 2012, pp. 279-293.
Eric Jenkins and Peter Zhang, “Deleuze the Media Ecologist? Extensions of and Advances on
303-319.
Lance Strate, “Understanding the Message of Understanding Media,” Atlantic Journal of
Communication, Vol. 25, 2017, pp. 244-254.
Applied contexts
Martin Hirst, “One Tweet Does Not a Revolution Make: Technological Determinism, Media and
Social Change,” Global Media Journal: Australian Edition, Vol. 6, 2012, pp. 1-11.
Daniel R. McCarthy, “Technology and ‘the International’ or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love Determinism,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 41, 2013, pp.
470-490.
Neil Postman
For other work by Neil Postman, see his provocative tirade Amusing Ourselves to Death (New
York: Penguin, 1986), which seeks to expose the strong entertainment bias inherent in the
technology of television.