Slides for talk given at Red Educación Mediática y Competencia Digital, Barcelona Nov. 2013

1. Greening the Media Literacy
Ecosystem: Towards A 21st
Century Pedagogy
Antonio López, PhD
Red Educación Mediática y Competencia Digital
Barcelona
Nov. 2013

6. Activity reinforces:
! Media and physical environment are two
different things
! Environment is a negative space to talk
about the problems of media
! Just as there are plant ecologies, there are
symbolic ecologies
! Media are only corporate media
! Media are an “other”

7. What is left out:
! Media and material environment are
interconnected
! Media are like a city: embedded (pervasive)
in our physical environment with different
practices and activities (not only
corporate) that we inhabit
! Media intersect different ecologies
(cognitive, socio-cultural, environmental,
medium-specific, aesthetic, symbolic, etc.)

8. Key factors:
! 19th century Mechanism separates the
media from environment, reinforcing
separation, disconnection and isolation
! Disciplinary silos creates barriers for
change
! Media education should be holistic to
incorporate connections, relationships and
systems

9. Outline:
! Define problem
! Ecological mindprint and footprint
! Media literacy and Sustainability
! Media literacy ecosystem
! Barriers and opportunities
! Ecomedia literacy

10. Defining Problem

11. “This is more than an
environmental crisis: it's an
existential threat, and it should
be treated like one, without fear
of sounding alarmist, rather than
covered as just another special
interest, something only
environmentalists care about.”
A Convenient Excuse,
Wen Stephenson
http://thephoenix.c
om/boston/news/146647-convenient-excuse/#ixzz2C7hgtXbx

12. 1960
1970
2000
Remember: We have one planet but we are
consuming 1.4 earths

14. Media’s Ecological!
Footprint!

15. Media gadgets in the US (2013):
!
78% of teens have a cell phone
! 37% of all teens have smartphones
(up from just 23% in 2011)
! 23% of teens have a tablet computer
! 95% of teens use the internet
! 93% of teens have a computer or
access.
Pew Research Center (2013)

16. Mining for rare earth minerals contributes to
civil war and loss of biodiversity

17. Coltan, Cassiterite, Wolframite, Gold

18. Internet C02 emissions equal to aviation
industry, will double in ten years
Cloud computing mainly powered by
coal
Cubitt, Hassan, Volkmer (2011)

19. E-waste
Planned obsolescence

20. Media’s Ecological “Mindprint”

21. Media are Environmental Education

23. Space, time and place

24. In 2001 63% of people got their information about
the environment from television.
Coyle (2005)
In 2005 $971 in ad dollars were spent per capita in
the United States
Brulle, Robert J. and Young, Lindsay E. (2007)
Ads promote pseudo-satisfier, dissatisfactionmanufacturing and convenience-constructing
discourses.
Stibbe (2009)

25. Regenerative
mindprint:
Empathy
Connection
Coordination
Storytelling
Education

26. Media Literacy and Sustainability

27. Media Literacy: Defined variously as
learning to access, evaluate and produce
media in a variety of formats.

28. Media literacy does not
address sustainability

29. Our Climate Crisis Is an Education Crisis
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/ProdDetails.asp?ID=RTSVOL25N3

30. My Theoretical
Framework

31. Oikos: Household
Root of economics/ecology

32. “Household management”

33. Mechanism

34. Humans are culture/organism/environment combined

35. Green cultural citizenship:
Embodying sustainable behaviors and cultural
practices that shape and promote ecological
values within the interconnected realms of
society, economy and environment.

37. !
th
19 !century!
Mechanism*
Progress/growth*
Mass*media*
Democracy*
Knowledge*construction*
Left*brain*hemisphere*dominant*(visual)*
Autonomy*
Transmission/receive*
Disembedded*from*living*systems*
!
st
21 !century!
Ecology/systems*
Ecological*limits/climate*disruption*
Media*ecosystem*
Earth*Democracy*
Ecological*intelligence*
Right*brain*emergent*(acoustic)*
Interdependence*
Participate/share*
Embedded*within*living*systems*

38. Metaphors

39. “The essence of metaphor is understanding and
experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”
Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 8)

40. Three primary metaphors
that guide media literacy research:
Environment (medium literacy)
Conveyor belt/conduit (text/content literacy)
Grammar (language literacy, i.e. film edits,
camera angles, sound cues, etc.)
Meyrowitz (1998)

41. vs.
Media ecosystems
“Blogging and the media ecosystem”
Naughton (2006)
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf
“Facebook ecosystem”
“iPhone ecosystem”

42. The Media Ecosystem is the ecologically
embedded sum of all our technologically
mediated interactions on planet Earth.
The Media Ecosystem, Antonio Lopez

43. Information Ecology

44. “A system of people, practices, values,
and technologies in a particular local
environment.”
Nardi and O’Day (2000, p. 49)

45. The Media Literacy
Ecosystem

46. Positions

47. Educationalist
vs.
Interventionist

48. Figured world (worldview): “A simplified
world that captures what is taken to be
normal.”
Gee (2011, p. 170)

49. Realms of Practice:
“realm,” “field,” “place,” “sector,” “domain,” “area,” “space,”
“sphere,” “world,” “threshold,” “entryway,” “gateway,” “curtain,”
“door”

50. Media Literacy’s
Figured World:
! Media
! Implicated Actors
! Lifeworld
! Public Sphere
! Literacy Practice
! Media Environment

51. Media:
Content: Message (77), Content-Text (19), Topic (11), Effects (9), Influence (8),
Product (7), Story (7), Culture (6), Representations (6)
Symbolic-sign-system (6), Meaning (9)
Grammar: Aesthetics, artistic visuals, camera angles, color, editing
Media types (environments): Information (29), Source (15), Medium (14),
Technology (14), Images (13), Ads (12), Digital (11), Video games (10), News (9),
Print (9), Communication technology-ICT (8)
Systems/organizations: Independent (8), Systems (8), Structure (5), Mass
Media (4), Power (4), Global media world (2), History (2), Ideology (2), Industries
(2), Monopoly (2), Ownership (2), Agents of socialization (1), Big business (1),
Cultural force (1), Institutions (1), Knowledge economy (1)
Conclusion:
Primarily visual and traditional media.

52. Implicated Actors:
Students (25)
Youth (20)
Community (19)
Citizens (18)
People (15)
Children (13)
Adults (12)
Consumers (12)
Educator (12)
Audience (9)
Individual (9)
Media makers (8)
Teacher (7)
Families-Parents (5)
Conclusion:
Youth and schools are primary actors

53. Lifeworld:
School-Classroom (18)
Belief (13)
Values (12)
Attitude (6)
Behavior (6)
Culture (6)
Work (5)
World (5)
Experience (4)
Home (4)
Knowledge (4)
Reality (3)
Conclusion:
Lifeworld is primarily centered in school

54. Public Sphere:
Citizenship (31)
Politics (11)
Democracy (10)
Rights (4)
Social (4)
Society (4)
Activism (3)
Economics (2)
Justice (2)
Power (2)
Reform (2)
Regulations (2)
Social justice (2)
Conclusion: Core groups care about critical
engagement, Periphery groups care about social
justice and advocacy

55. Literacy Practice:
Critical thinking (53)
Skills (40)
Analyze (29)
Communicate (19)
Evaluate (19)
Empowerment (14)
Access (13)
Produce (11)
Expression (10)
About media (9)
Create (8)
Creativity (8)
Engagement (8)
Understand (8)
With Media (8)
Active (7)
Conclusion:
Primarily reflective practices

56. Discussion:
Media Literacy
Environment
!

57. NIMBY:
Not in my back yard

58. ! Disciplinary silos isolate
! Lack of knowledge and complexity of environmental
issues
! Fear of teaching unknown topics or “wisely” not
choosing to cover unfamiliar material
! Too many external pressures (time, formal, standards,
testing, funding)
! Formal media literacy is mostly practiced in English
education, which is not the normal place where
environmental issues are handled (such as in science)

59. ! Sustainability is primarily part of the science domain
! Sustainability education is “persuasion,” which does not
pass the media literacy “smell test”
! Media literacy is “sealed off from the rest of life”
! Normative ethics can be a barrier to standards
integration
! “Wigitization” of education policy
! “Anti-progress” is anti-business

60. !
Ecomedia Literacy

61. Ecomedia Literacy:
Understanding how everyday media practice
impacts our ability to live sustainably within
earth’s ecological parameters for the present
and future.

62. Ecomedia Literacy goals:
1. To develop an awareness of how media are
physiologically interconnected with living
systems.

63. Ecomedia Literacy goals:
2. To recognize media’s phenomenological
influence on the perception of time, space,
place and cognition.

64. Ecomedia Literacy goals:
3. To understand media’s interdependence
with the global economy, and how the
current model of globalization impacts livings
systems and social justice.

65. Ecomedia Literacy goals:
4. To analyze how media form symbolic
associations and discourses that promote
environmental ideologies.

66. Ecomedia Literacy goals:
5. To be conscious of how media impacts
our ability to engage in sustainable cultural
practices and to encourage new uses of
media that promote sustainability

68. Ecomedia literacy’s four lenses:
Worldview
(phenomenology)
Media’s impact on our
perception of time, space
and place
Environment
(earth system)
The material conditions of
media, including extraction,
production, e-waste, energy and
emissions
Culture
(hermeneutics, cultural studies)
Text and discourse analysis of
media texts; mapping cultural
behaviors and attitudes
Political Economy
(world system, critical theory)
Ideological structure of the
global economics system, paying
attention to the reasons why
designers design what they do

69. Ecomedia Literacy Skills:
! Research gadget production (information
literacy)
! Deconstruct gadget marketing (media content
analysis)
! Mindfully engage a media by demonstrating
attentiveness to what experiences media
environments afford (media mindfulness)
! Holistically inventory media (systems literacy)

70. Enduring question:
What constitutes a healthy
media ecosystem?

71. Problem: Separation,
division, isolation
Solution: connections,
relationships, systems

72. !
References

73. Brulle, Robert J. and Young, Lindsay E. (2007). Advertising and individual
consumption levels 1900 - 2000. Sociological Inquiry, 77(4), 522–542.
Clarke, A., Friese, C. (2010). Grounded theorizing using situational
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grounded theory (Pbk. ed., pp. 363-97). Los Angeles i.e. Thousand Oaks,
Calif.: SAGE Publications.
Corbett, J. B. (2006). Communicating nature: How we create and
understand environmental messages. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Coyle, K. (2005). Environmental literacy in america. (). Washington, DC:
National Environmental Education Training Foundation.
Cubitt, S., Hassan, R., Volkmer, I. (2011). Does cloud computing have a
silver lining? Media, Culture Society, 33(1), 149-158. doi:
10.1177/0163443710382974
Dryzek, J. S.,. (2005). The politics of the earth: Environmental discourses.
Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

74. Gee, J. P. (2011). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method.
Milton Park, Abingdon; New York: Routledge.
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by Chicago :
University of Chicago Press.
Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Duggan, M., Cortesi, S. Gasser, U. (2013).
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www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-and-Tech.aspx
Meyrowitz, J. (1998). Multiple media literacies. Journal of Communication,
(Winter), 96-108.
Nardi, B. A., O'Day,V. (2000). Information ecologies: Using technology with
heart. Cambridge, Mass. ; London: MIT.
Naughton, J. J. (2006). Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem.
Retrieved April 24, 2013, from http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/
fileadmin/ documents/discussion/blogging.pdf
Stibbe, A. (2009). The handbook of sustainability literacy: Skills for a
changing world. Totnes, UK: Green Books.

75. More info/contact:
http://ecomedialit.com
info@ecomedialit.com