Echoes and Reflections: Media Ecology as a Field of Study.Lance Strate Lance Strate BA, MA, PhD is a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. He is internationally recognized for his intellectual leadership in the discipline of communication. . Echoes and Reflections: Media Ecology as a Field of Study. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2006. Media ecology, defined as a study of media as environments, has been described by Neil Postman as "general semantics writ large." Aside from Postman, Marshall McLuhan is most closely associated with media ecology, and McLuhan's famous aphorism aphorism (ăf`ərĭz'əm), short, pithy statement of an evident truth concerned with life or nature; distinguished from the axiom because its truth is not capable of scientific demonstration. , "the medium is the message," can be considered the first axiom of this discipline. Echoes and Reflections explores the multiple meanings of McLuhan's densely packed statement, as well other many other facets of media ecology. The book is divided into two parts. Part One, entitled "A Media Ecology Review," provides an objective overview of the field. Subjects covered in this part include a discussion of the work of Neil Postman, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, Harold Innis, Lewis Mumford, and Jacques Ellul; a discussion of the formal roots of media ecology in the study of language and symbolic communication; and a general discussion of media ecology as an intellectual approach. Part Two, entitled "Narcissism narcissism (närsĭs`ĭzəm), Freudian term, drawn from the Greek myth of Narcissus, indicating an exclusive self-absorption. In psychoanalysis, narcissism is considered a normal stage in the development of children. and Echolalia echolalia /echo·la·lia/ (ek?o-la´le-ah) stereotyped repetition of another person's words and phrases. ech·o·la·li·a n. 1. : Sense and the Struggle for the Self," presents a subjective personal statement about the author as a communication scholar and how the field of media ecology relates to his own life. Subjects covered in this part include a discussion of a story whose theme is something from nothing, a theme that is related to the study of human communication; an exploration of the topic of autism autism (ô`tĭzəm), developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. and the struggle for self (the author is the father of an autistic autistic /au·tis·tic/ (aw-tis´tik) characterized by or pertaining to autism. child); and comments on coping with the individual difficulties of autism and the larger cultural crises that we face. Lance Strate, an associate professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, the president and co-founder of the Media Ecology Association, and an occasional contributor to ETC ETC - ExTendible Compiler. Fortran-like, macro extendible. "ETC - An Extendible Macro-Based Compiler", B.N. Dickman, Proc SJCC 38 (1971). , has provided with this book the first comprehensive overview of the field of media ecology and an intriguing case study concerning the relationship between modes of communication and construction of the self. I found the volume most informative and at times quite moving and I highly recommend it. REVIEW BY MARTIN H. LEVINSON, PHD |
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