Week 5 : Media Ecology

               As quoted by Neil Postman (2009), media ecology looks into the matter of how media communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. (as cited in Media Ecology Association, 2009).

               According to McLuhan, media ecology is the study of different personal and social environments created by the use of different communication technologies. (as cited by Griffin, 2009, p.313)



The Medium Is the Message

              Media ecologist Neil Postman once remarked that "A medium is a technology within which a culture grows; that is to say, it gives form to a culture's politics, social organization, and habitual ways of thinking. (as cited by Tom Valcanis, 2011, p.33-45)

              As stated by McLuhan, medium is the specific type of media, for example a book, newspaper, radio, television, telephone, film, website or email. In order to understand how media affects large structural changes in human outlook, McLuhan classify media as either hot or cool. 

              Hot media refers to a high-definition communication that demands little involvement from audience for examples radio, books and lectures. Whereas cool media describes media that demands active involvement from audience for examples, TV, seminars and cartoons.


Twitter as a cold medium

              In my opinion, Twitter is regarded as a cold medium as exemplified by McLuhan, "A movie is thus said by McLuhan to be ‘hot’, intensifying one single sense high definition, demanding a viewer's attention, and a comic book to be ‘cool’ and low definition, requiring much more conscious participation by the reader to extract value."

              Firstly, this is due to the critical mass of people already using Twitter. As is the case with most social media tools, the more people who actually use a particular service, the richer the possible range of experiences.  Twitter is free where the barrier to entry is very low. All you need is a mobile phone that can send and receive text message. Moreover, Twitter uses the lowest common denominator for all languages where it does not get any more basic than ones and zeros. Also, there are 6 billion people on Earth and 4 billion of them have twitter ready devices.

               Secondly, just as crucial reason for using Twitter, is due to the way it has become part of the social media ecology, weaving its way into other services.  Through advanced twitter search, it is easy to find and connect with people who may help raise your awareness. Twitter is the easiest way to connect with influenced people including politicians, celebrities, and captains of industry.


              Twitter also has a few diversities where one of it is that, when given a problem to solve, a diverse group of non-experts arrive at better solutions than a group of experts. Additionally, news, ideas, brand stories and rumors spread at the speed of light on twitter. People may think of twitter as a round the clock networking event where anyone with a device and a connection can virtually mingle with the likes of Bill Gates, Lady Gaga or Roger Ebert.

References :

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory.New York : The McGraw-Hill.Companies

Postman, N. (2009). What is Media Ecology, Retrieved March 1, 2012, from Media Ecology Association:                                                                                                                                                          http://www.mediaecology.org/media_ecology/index.html

Valcanis, T. (2011). Media Ecology : Communication Structures and                               Global Village. An Iphone in Every Hand , 33-45.



Aziimah binti Othman (11B8111)