When it comes to technology, I'm a Heideggerian: “Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it."
I enjoyed the honor of interviewing Neil Postman for a newspaper many years ago. He was generous to a fault with his time.
Postman told me that he believed only formal media studies could help us see that we're in chains; without studying media, we're hopeless as citizens, because, like fish in a fishbowl, we can't step outside our media-saturated environment.
``Media education involves understanding the role technology plays in shaping cognitive habits, political ideas, and social behavior,'' he said.
Postman then explained what comprises media studies entail.
Media studies entail, among other things, monitoring your own consumption of media, to see how the different media structure your experiences, order your time, and stimulate your senses.
Media studies also entail learning to look for the ways in which the various media portray values, ideas, and stereotypes; and how messages are shaped by owners, advertisers, producers, editors, publicists, political handlers, and the many other professionals who work in what Postman called the ``consciousness industries.''
Thanks for this. I constantly find myself thinking how McLuhan, Innis, Postman would be writing, saying, doing in these new media days. My graduate advisor was a student of Postman's, and while I'm not entirely sold on Media Ecology as a rigorous academic discipline, I do think there's something to the ideals and thinking behind it.
While I'm not an advocate of media studies departments (seems to me like the discipline is partly an offshoot of behavioral science, and partly an offshoot of business studies), the men you mentioned made major contributions to our culture. I suspect they'd have a lot to say about "user-generated content," which (along with 24/7 access and search capabilities) is the fundamental difference between the old an new media.
Thought-provoking post!
When it comes to technology, I'm a Heideggerian: “Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it."
I enjoyed the honor of interviewing Neil Postman for a newspaper many years ago. He was generous to a fault with his time.
Postman told me that he believed only formal media studies could help us see that we're in chains; without studying media, we're hopeless as citizens, because, like fish in a fishbowl, we can't step outside our media-saturated environment.
``Media education involves understanding the role technology plays in shaping cognitive habits, political ideas, and social behavior,'' he said.
Postman then explained what comprises media studies entail.
Media studies entail, among other things, monitoring your own consumption of media, to see how the different media structure your experiences, order your time, and stimulate your senses.
Media studies also entail learning to look for the ways in which the various media portray values, ideas, and stereotypes; and how messages are shaped by owners, advertisers, producers, editors, publicists, political handlers, and the many other professionals who work in what Postman called the ``consciousness industries.''
Thanks for this. I constantly find myself thinking how McLuhan, Innis, Postman would be writing, saying, doing in these new media days. My graduate advisor was a student of Postman's, and while I'm not entirely sold on Media Ecology as a rigorous academic discipline, I do think there's something to the ideals and thinking behind it.
While I'm not an advocate of media studies departments (seems to me like the discipline is partly an offshoot of behavioral science, and partly an offshoot of business studies), the men you mentioned made major contributions to our culture. I suspect they'd have a lot to say about "user-generated content," which (along with 24/7 access and search capabilities) is the fundamental difference between the old an new media.
I like your new venture!