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- Volume 15, Issue 2, 2016
Explorations in Media Ecology - Volume 15, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 15, Issue 2, 2016
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Blindness and ambivalence: The meeting of Media Ecology and Philosophy of Technology
More LessAbstractThis article sets the stage for a meeting between the fields of Media Ecology (ME) and the contemporary Philosophy of Technology (PhilTech), hence introducing the special issue ‘Philosophy of Technology & Media Ecology’. First, both fields are briefly introduced. Second, contemporary PhilTech is elaborated upon more substantially. Third, a framework is set in place, circling around the notions of ‘ambivalence’ and ‘blindness’ – strongly represented in PhilTech and ME, respectively – to guide the discussion to follow. Fourth and finally, a short overview of the contributions in this volume is offered.
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The Media Ecology–Philosophy of Technology disconnect: A matter of perception?
More LessAbstractThis article conducts a discourse analysis of a selection of in-depth interviews with philosophers of technology housed within Figure/Ground (www.figureground.org), an open-source, para-academic, interdisciplinary collaboration supporting one of the largest repositories of scholarly interviews on the web. By analysing various answers to a set of recurrent questions, the article provides a general sense of how Marshall McLuhan – often identified as one of the forefathers of Media Ecology – is perceived by the neighbouring field of Philosophy of Technology. The underlining hypothesis is that, despite significant cross-disciplinary affinities made evident by a recent philosophical turn in McLuhan studies, the lack of collaborative engagement between both camps, particularly among senior scholars, remains quite significant. As the interviews show, this gap can be attributed, in part, to a matter of (mis)perception on behalf of the philosophers: their reservations stem primarily from McLuhan’s controversial public statements, public persona and idiosyncratic use of language, as well as an outdated (deterministic/substantivist) approach to his oeuvre. Nevertheless, the interviews do not strictly reflect any substantial differences – whether theoretical or methodological – that would justify an ongoing disconnect between both fields.
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Cussing the buzz-saw, or, the medium is the morality of Peter-Paul Verbeek
More LessAbstractPhilosopher of technology Peter-Paul Verbeek adds a new dimension to media ecology by introducing the argument that technologies are inherently moral agents and designing them is a moral enterprise whether or not it is intended to be. Verbeek’s work moves beyond the media as extension theory of media ecology to a media as composite theory in which the human and technological are inseparable. This article compares the moral aspects of media ecology and Verbeek, sketching Verbeek’s philosophy of technology ideas and exploring in detail the elements of Verbeek’s five-step moral media design process in the hope that media ecology consider media design as well as its consumption, in order to, as McLuhan wrote, ‘think things out before we put them out’.
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Personalist survey of media studies territories
More LessAbstractThis article attempts to distinguish characteristics of various forms of media studies. Personalism is presented as a philosophical perspective that helps to draw out those distinctions and, in the process, to affirm or to recover commitments to the inviolability and to the interrelatedness of human persons.
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Media Ecology and the Internet of Things
More LessAbstractMedia ecologists and philosophers of technology are now asking many of the same scholarly questions. Both disciplines examine the human experience through the lens of technology. The Media Ecology perspective is attentive to communicative media experiences that impact humans. Philosophy of Technology (PhilTech) is also concerned with human-technology connection and the nature of social effects. The ideas and methods both disciplines use overlap and provide reified proof that technologies make a difference in practical everyday contexts. Both sets of scholars aim to prove that technology does not lack effect. It is time to formally consider how these two disciplines converge. This reflection aims to formalize and encourage the link between Media Ecology and PhilTech. The Internet of Things (IoT) will serve as an illustrative example for this analysis. The first section introduces PhilTech and the contribution Media Ecology has made in that discipline. The second section defines and explains the IoT. The final section illustrates ways in which Media Ecology can be used as a subgenre of PhilTech.
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Mapping the mind: A technophilosophical probe
More LessAbstractThis article describes a long-standing conceptual impasse regarding the ontological status of ‘mind’ at least since the time of Descartes. While this impasse finds root in a problematic mind-body dualism, a more recent and tenacious scientific preoccupation seeks to locate representational features of memory, cognition and consciousness in the biological substrate of the brain. The emergence and utility of a non-representational theory is then discussed as an alternative to the representational theory. The article concludes by proffering a new mapping or ‘topography of mind’ which points to the return of a peculiar species of representationalism. However, this much more nuanced and non-localized theory suggests that the nature and extent of mind has shifted through time, and in predictable ways, in a world increasingly constituted by technologies of various kinds.
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Book Review
More LessAbstractTHE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS: MARX, LUKÁCS AND THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL, ANDREW FEENBERG (2014) London: Verso Press, ISBN: 978-1-78168-172-5, paperback, $23.67
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 22 (2023)
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Volume 21 (2022)
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Volume 20 (2021)
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Volume 19 (2020)
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Volume 18 (2019)
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Volume 17 (2018)
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Volume 16 (2017)
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Volume 15 (2016)
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Volume 14 (2015)
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Volume 13 (2014)
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Volume 12 (2013)
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Volume 11 (2012)
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Volume 10 (2011)
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Volume 9 (2010)
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Volume 8 (2009)
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Volume 7 (2008)
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Volume 6 (2007)
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Volume 5 (2006)
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Volume 4 (2005)
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Volume 3 (2004)
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Volume 2 (2003)
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Volume 1 (2002)