Media Ecology Commentary: Week 3

Jacob Blakeney
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

Communication Infrastructures: contested ecologies

The relationship between people, media and technology is not as simple as it seems. Fuller’s explanation of why we use the term “media ecology, sums up the connection between people, technology and media rather well. “The term “ecology” is used here because it is one of the most expressive language currently has to indicate the massive and dynamic interrelation of processes and objects, beings and things, patterns and matter.” (Fuller, 2005, p2) It has developed so rapidly over time to the point that language hasn’t caught up with it. The infrastructure of communication is such a complex mess, that we’ve shoe-horned a word in to describing it, because it’s the closest thing we’ve got right now.

Why is it so complex though? We’ve arrived at a stage where there are many “microsystems” that all intertwine to one another. Jose van Dijck’s attempt to unpack the “platforms as microsystems” shows how messy and fraught with technicality that modern technology is (van Dijck, 2013, 28). Who owns what content? Does the creator of content then control it? The content, the user and the owner are tied so closely to each other that it becomes impossible to separate them (van Dijck, 2013, 35).

That it is so difficult to define the individual technicalities within the ecology, makes it even more difficult to define the ecology itself. Technology is continuing to develop, companies are still making profit and users are still using products to access technology in new ways. So why does it matter how congested the ecology gets?

References

Fuller, M. (2005). ‘Media Ecologies’. p.2.
van Dijck, J. (2013) ‘Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality’. pp 24–44