Media Ecology Essay

Media Ecology Plan

The phrase media ecology was officially introduced in 1968 by the media theorist Neil postman. However, what inspired the phrase was Marshall McLuhan's theory proposed in his 1964 book, understanding media. Media Ecology is the aims to describe the ways in which diverse media environments shape today's society and everyday lives. And the central premise of the theory is that the communication content doesn't exert nearly as much influence as the medium of communication itself does.

Postman, Nystrom, and Strate have defined media ecology in quite similar ways. They suggest that media, or rather, a medium is a technological context, the environment that consists of communication systems within which we live, and which shape our culture. Such as, that environment inevitably affects our perceptions, feelings, values, and beliefs. Logan expanded upon the definition by suggesting that media ecology is also based on feedback that flows back and forth between an environment and a medium. Medium receives data, processes it, and returns it to the environment, which in turn processes that output, and returns the new data to the medium.

The medium is the message declared Marshal McLuhan, he even wrote a book with that name, expect when the proofs came back from the type setter as the medium is the massage. He liked the mistake in the title so much he kept it. But what does the medium in the message even mean, its a deliberate paradoxical statement, when you get a message its the message that's the message, isn't it? "The content rather than its form" McLuhan's genius was to focus on the medium itself.

He believed that throughout history, what has been communicated has been less important than the particular medium through which people communicate, as well as the technology that transforms the message changes us as well as changing society like the individual, the Family, work, and leisure. McLuhan thought the printed word encourages and emphasis on the visual, whereas in earlier oral cultures when speech was everything, the dominant sense organ was the ear. The electronic media of his day was the Telegraph, Radio, Television, and the Telephone were he thought unifying people and encouraging participation, although at the perhaps of great conformity. But what was emerging was some sort of Global Village.

This can relate to Web 2.0 as it is everywhere because of all the technology that has increased throughout all the years. This is Technological convergence which is when audiences have many devices like phones, iPads, and laptops to watch streaming platforms and other means of content instead of just sitting down at the Television with your parents in the living room. YouTube is one of the biggest platforms in the world at which is the second most searched website in the world other than "google.com". YouTube is a good place or audiences to receive content as well as give content with 500 hours of uploaded videos every minute, with over 1 billion hours watched everyday.

This also relates to the theory of Shirky, he came up with the theory "End of audience theory" he believed that there is no much thing as passive audiences anymore but instead active audiences as everyone will interact with media by commenting, liking, and sharing. However the main Theory is about passive audiences turning to consumers who are producers that become active audiences. The audiences who create their own media and content, Shirky calls them "prosumers" as they have created their own content and can put it on the web for YouTube so other active audiences can react with it.

Covids role in audience trends has changed the way streaming services are being perceived as well as attendance increasing because of how all audiences were stuck at home, they would tend to watch Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming platforms, whereas theatre attendance would decrease in the market as no one will be going to watch movies on the big screen as they are all at home enjoying a movie in bed. This can relate to how technology have also changed the role in audience trends because of how many audiences have devices to watch streaming services on. Technology is everywhere we look as well as in our pockets are bags.

The algorithms that Netflix and YouTube have are incredible as it brings all together the shows, or series that you have watched and creates a recommended page for you as a specific person based on the shows you have watched before. On Netflix this is can pop up as a title of "Because you watched (name of show watched before)" and has movies that are similar. YouTube have got a full recommended page that how's all the different videos that are recommended to you from your taste in videos are specific YouTubers you like to watch.