Executive Summary

Executive Summary

 

Developed solely by Marshall McLuhan, media ecology theory describes that technology is linked to the influence on society. Marshall McLuhan states that we have a strange connection to technology; we create technology and in turn technology creates who we are as a society. When we invent a new technology, we also grow within our society. We are highly dependent on electronic media such as radio, television, and computers to get by in our daily life. Think of the time when we wake up in the morning to the time when we sleep, how many different electronic technologies we encounter in our daily life to get by? McLuhan believes that it is almost impossible to find a society that is unchanged by technology (McLuhan, 2000).

 

There are three main premises of media ecology theory on how it affects society. (1) Media infuse every act and action in society. (2) Media fix our perceptions and organize our experiences. (3) Media tie the world together. McLuhan and Quentin Fiore say that different media eras define different time periods in our society. For instance we have the tribal era, literate era, print era, and electronic era; each affecting society differently (Strates, 2000).

 

Media Ecology Theory is known as “the medium is the message” which means that the medium can change how we think and act in our society. News is a prime example of how we think and act as a society (MacDonald, 2006).

 

“Hot and Cold” media structural outlook on how media can be classify. Hot media is considered to be media that listener and viewers can view without have to think or analyze much about the content they are given to the audience. An example of that would be film, movies, books, lectures, radio and digital photography. Cold media is media were you have to really analyze and think about what is given or shown in front of you like television, telephone, cartoons, seminars, and conversations (McLuhan, 2000).

 

Media Ecology Theory also discusses and tries to understand the past, present, and current effects of media like the enhancement, obsolescence, retrieval, and reversal of media. “One of the most important ideas in the media ecology literature is that there are distinct media environments, and categories such as the oral, scribal, print, and electronic media environments, within which cultures grow and forms of consciousness evolve…[in which] any technology or extension of man creates a new environment or a medium as the message” (Strates, 2000).

 

(Blue Team, Spring 2008)