New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication
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276 research outputs found
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A Reversal of Fortune: Media narratives and Global Catastrophe
No full textThis paper explores the ways in which anthropocentric media narrative such as product advertising enables and encourages overconsumption and a “humans first” culture which in turn contributes to climate change and unethical environmental practices. Topics covered include the deleterious effects that fast fashion and food production have on the planet, the rise of zoonotic diseases including SARS and Covid-19 as a result of ecosystem destruction, biodiversity loss and unethical food practices. Media normalize and enable this culture of overconsumption—we are living in an environment where the toxic messages relayed through a multi media channels are a form of digital pollution
Makes Digital Sensemaking Sense?—A Roadmap for Digital Humanism in Increasingly Transhumanist Settings
No full textKeeping humans in the loop or bringing them back into the loop in dynamically changing socio-technical or socio-hybrid systems requires the human-centered arrangement of system designs and the adoption of digital artefacts according to human capabilities and needs. When transhumanist developments increasingly propagate through society, digital sensemaking could support their co-evolution in a sensible way. We discuss sensemaking to that end, and provide a roadmap on how to integrate sensemaking processes into capacity building processes and digitalization initiatives
The New World Disorder
No full textThis is the unfinshed manuscript of the late Robert Kasher entitled The New World Disorde
Designing Sustainable Interactions for Digital Humanism
No full textThe main purpose of Sustainable Interaction Design is to meet global challenges in society, economy and environment to an extent that goes beyond the well-being of human beings but looks forward to the sustained well-being of all beings. This paper examines the relation between Sustainable Interaction Design and Digital Humanism. Interactions as objects of design could/should be characterized as able to afford sustainable behavior for the following reasons: their very existence is sustainable, they are designed to evoke sustainability, or they are part of a sustainable system. Humanity needs to realize that every single human being is part of the humanitarian and ecological crisis. Through Sustainable Interaction Design, we could potentially help users feel that they are part of the solution and that their actions can purposely alter the way they experience life. We seek answers related to the design, the ontology, and the contribution of sustainable interactions in shaping more humane interfaces
Probe-ability: McLuhan’s Methodology of the Probe
No full textIt never fails that every time one of my books is published I encounter something that I wish I had included in that book
Achieving Transparency in Adaptive Digital Systems
No full textTo take control of digital technologies, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms that underlie their input-output relations. This transparency is hindered by the fact that these systems use informational rather than physical mechanisms, and that informational mechanisms cannot be directly observed or detected. In programmed computers this problem is solved by using strict (de)coding systems, but in deep neural networks and other types of adaptive artificial intelligence such methods cannot be used. This article presents an alternative approach to achieving the required transparency, inspired by the way in which conscious reporting provides insight into the inner workings of the human mind
The Evolution of the Anthropocene and Climate Change: A Media Ecology Approach and a Call to Action
No full textThe idea of the Anthropocene is investigated in a multidisciplinary study by combining the perspectives of geography, biology, archaeology, paleontology and media ecology (i.e. the study of the impacts of technology). The hypothesis is developed that the Anthropocene did not have a precise starting point (i.e. there is no “golden spike”), but that the Anthropocene began in starts and fits and that it was not evenly distributed over time and space and that as time increased the severity of the changes to the Earth’s environment due to human activity increased with time to the point that it now threatens the very possibility of human existence on this planet. We have identified six stages in the evolution of the Anthropocene starting with the global dispersal of Homo sapiens to today’s looming crisis of global warming, climate change and the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event which we are currently in the midst of. The six stages of the emergence of the Anthropocene that are identified include i. the Paleo-Anthropocene with the extinction of megafauna and the large-scale forest clearing by fire; ii. the Neolithic-Anthropocene at the beginning of the Holocene that includes the Neolithic Revolution; iii. the Trade-Anthropocene with the spread of flora and fauna globally through global trade and includes the Orbis Spike; iv. the Industrial-Anthropocene or the Industrial Revolution beginning with the invention of the steam engine and its application to manufacturing and transportation; v. the Petro-electric-Anthropocene beginning with the gasoline powered motor car and the generation of electricity mostly through burning fossil fuels; and vi. the Hyper-Anthropocene or Great Acceleration-Anthropocene with the onset of global warming and climate change. We will examine what it is that causes humans to harm the very environment that gives them life and sustains them to the point that their very own survival is put in peril. We must learn how to control our use of technology instead of allowing our technology to control us
Fundamentals of Biotechnocommunicology
No full textBiotechnocommunicology is a complex territory of knowledge in which biology, technology and communicology converge. The ideas of Marshall McLuhan, founder of Media Ecology, represent a possible starting point in the understanding of the complex biotechnocommunicological imaginary. McLuhan sustained that since media and technologies are extensions of us, their evolution depends on us. The intellectual work of Gerald S. Hawkins not only confirmed the relevance of some of McLuhan\u27s advanced theses, which, of course, transcend the field of communicology. Hawkins contributed to connecting McLuhan\u27s ideas with Kurzweil\u27s advanced thinking. In the complexity of the transhumanist imaginary, there is a new possibility that is being considered: that the new evolution of the Homo Sapiens depends not on biology, but on technology. This would imply inverting a central thesis in McLuhan\u27s thinking in order to understand the renewed Homo Sapiens as an extension of technology