Critical Media Ecology: What and Why?
A blurb I wrote to be included in the upcoming issue of the Media Ecology Association's newsletter In Media Res
Since 2019, some colleagues and I have "added a little spice" to media ecology, spearheading what has thus far been referred to as the wave of “gender and media ecology”. Most recently, I've argued that this term is too limited, and that "critical media ecology" is more appropriate. As such, in efforts to advance the field, we began coupling feminist concepts with the more traditional approach. I cannot speak for everyone, but -- for me -- the goal of doing so is to recontextualize the range of traditional approaches with vastly rich insights of gender (and now disability, race, biological sex, orientation, ethnicity, class, etc.) studies, that -- when only zoomed in upon the canon -- is absent.
To exemplify how, the main contribution in my dissertation was the argument that since U.S. origin there has been a colonially-founded capitalist-funded mechanization of humans (as media), that is now flipping and reversing into a humanization of objects. Specifically, among the host of histographic materials I highlighted to argue this, I extended Miroshnichenko’s (2014) concepts of humans as media, Dowd’s (2016) suggestion of critical media ecology, and Sharma’s (2019) landmark claim that systems of power are machinelike, and thus, mediums, using a critical feminist sensibility.
My critical media ecological framework contributes a substantiated reminder that, broadly (thanks to outdated mind-body dualism, colonialism, and all proceeding models of U.S. capitalism[s]), logic has been misconstrued with mainly able-bodied White cishet men, as embodied knowledge has been misattributed as quintessentially feminine. This is why I suggest we need critical media ecology. And, ultimately, my argument is that pre-McLuhan era critical feminist scholars (and more!) were the first media ecologists. Why?
As a result of interdisciplinary critical researcher’s labor, historically retrieving assemblages of “founding folks’” legacies, it is clear that most anyone else has been excluded from generating institutionally respected knowledge. This stunts ideas of what WAS history, IS the present, mediating our future actions. From my Dr. bird's eye view, this remains evidenced by citational practices business as usual in the field of media ecology, and the U.S. envirusment (environment + virus = envirusment) overall.