digital media ecology

The immersive, turbulent, mediatized flow.

It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters.

Narrative is a tool by which we extract (or impose, depending on your perspective) meaning from the chaotic flux of being in the world

L. M. Sacasas • Narrative Collapse

So a medium is a human innovation which enhances, amplifies, extends some human sense or function, as a cup amplifies our ability to drink water or liquid; a telephone, our ability to speak with someone. In turn, this creates a new medium or new human environment for us with new ‘services and disservices’ or affordances and consequences. It makes... See more

3 Reversal

We have changed our environment enough that our current ways of understanding what’s going on no longer hold: technology and globalization have changed our information streams and our patterns of life drastically enough that the ways we calibrate around incoming information are becoming increasingly dangerous for us, and this trend will only... See more

Everyone’s Existential Crisis

In its place, the real conversations and connections migrated to an archipelago of WhatsApp groups, Slacks, Discord servers and Signal chats. This is the Archipelago of Trust: self-selecting focused communities loosely bridged by mutual members and bounded by common norms.

What AI means for the business of: journalism

Increasingly our tech also opens us up to new vectors of anxiety. Regardless of whether you’re working more or less, your nervous system is now plugged into a neurotic and hypersensitive globe-spanning information system that’s constantly pushing unnecessary things into your consciousness. Perversely, this information obesity actually makes us feel... See more

Brett Scott • Tech Doesn’t Make Our Lives Easier. It Makes Them Faster

Essentially, web surfing is a form of digital hunting and gathering—with the goal of finding something to feed curiosity and share with others for social gains.

Andrey Mir • The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution

Political and cultural struggles have moved onto the new media hardware and embraced its settings. Since the main effect of digital media, particularly social media platforms, has been to catalyze self-expression, the cultural, political, and economic significance of identity claims has skyrocketed.

Andrey Mir • My new book: The Viral Inquisitor and Other Essays on Postjournalism and Media Ecology

Despite the archival riches and the decentralized architecture, the net’s emphasis on the light-speed transmission of data for commercial gain, combined with our all-too-human hunger for diversion and distraction, has given rise to information empires of unprecedented scope. Our new emperors give us all the information we can consume but starve us... See more

Nicholas Carr • The Tyranny of Now

Media are the hardware of society—the hardware has evolved from expressing ideas to centering on identities. The software—our culture—has followed suit. Identity politics mirrors the development of media, reflecting its cultural consequences.