In The Cultural Logic of Computation Golumbia raises questions and addresses issues that are promising, but then proceeds in making an argument that is ultimately unproductive. I am sympathetic to Golumbia’s aims; I share an attitude of skepticism toward the rhetoric surrounding the Internet and new media as inherently democratizing, liberating devices. Golumbia characterizes such … Continue reading Media Ecology Monday: Golumbia and the Political Economy of Computationalism
Tag: politicaleconomy
McLuhan Monday: Print and Islam, mobile gaming medium theory, McLuhan’s relevance, and more
In an article for Haaretz reflecting on last week's terror attacks in Paris, Michael Handelzalts invokes McLuhan's infamous aphorism in relation to the emergence of print culture in the Islamic world: So, in the Muslim world, books and literacy became generally accessible (instead of being accessible only to the educated male and the wealthy) about a … Continue reading McLuhan Monday: Print and Islam, mobile gaming medium theory, McLuhan’s relevance, and more
Your brain on Kindle; 21st Century media literacy; how Disney shapes youth identity
Radio program New Tech City from WNYC interviewed Mike Rosenwald on his research into the effects of reading from a screen as opposed to print. Article and audio from the interview available here: Neuroscience, in fact, has revealed that humans use different parts of the brain when reading from a piece of paper or from … Continue reading Your brain on Kindle; 21st Century media literacy; how Disney shapes youth identity
Political Economy in Mumford’s “Technics & Civilization”
I've written about the media ecology tradition, attended the Media Ecology Association's conferences and had an article published in their journal, but up to now Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media and Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death are the only primary texts associated with the tradition that I've read. To broaden my knowledge of the tradition … Continue reading Political Economy in Mumford’s “Technics & Civilization”
Fukuyama: 25 years after the “End of History”
Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of his infamous essay, "The End of History?", Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal reflecting on how the world has changed since he declared the end of history: I argued that History (in the grand philosophical sense) was turning out very differently from what … Continue reading Fukuyama: 25 years after the “End of History”
Ender’s Game analyzed, the Stanley Parable explored, Political Economy of zombies, semiotics of Twitter, much more
It's been a long time since the last update (what happened to October?), so this post is extra long in an attempt to catch up. I haven't seen the new Ender's Game movie, but this review by abbeyotis at Cyborgology calls the film "a lean and contemporary plunge into questions of morality mediated by technology": … Continue reading Ender’s Game analyzed, the Stanley Parable explored, Political Economy of zombies, semiotics of Twitter, much more