Explorations in Media Ecology

As you may know, Explorations in Media Ecology is the official journal of the Media Ecology Association, and I launched the journal, together with Judith Yaross Lee, almost two decades ago. We published our first issue in 2002, Judith and I co-edited the first three volumes, and I went on to solo edit the next three. After that, I turned the journal over to other editors, notably Corey Anton and Paul Grosswiler.

So, as it turns out, the next editor of EME was unable to take the reins due to other commitments (something trivial, like a college presidency), so I stepped in at the last minute, and returned to the position of journal editor earlier this year. I hope you don't mind if I tell you a little bit about what I'm doing, and then share the call for papers here.

In my view, putting together a good team is essential. That started with the Managing Editor, and I was pleased to be able to recruit Callie Gallo, who is teaching and pursuing a doctorate in English at Fordham University, and is a fine young media ecologist in her own right. She is the journal's equivalent of the White House Chief of Staff, and has both  detail-oriented skills and a global perspective, a rare combination indeed. As we went through the transition from the previous incoming editor, we found that his Editorial Assistant, Joshua Hill, was a great help, so we invited him to stay on, focusing his attention on the first round of copy editing, before articles are sent on to our publisher, Intellect, to smooth the way for their own process of copy editing and layout. Josh's expertise being in composition, his expertise makes a valuable contribution to our efforts, so we are quite pleased that he has been willing to stay on.

One of my goals is to produce a much better book review section than we've had in the past. I really think that book reviews are much more than filler, that they're an important contribution to scholarship, often underrated, and that for EME it is an especially important way to cover new developments in the field of media ecology. To that end, we're in the process of doing a lookback, going back about seven years, to publish reviews of books of particular relevance to the field of media ecology that have been previously overlooked by our journal, along with recent additions of course. I initially recruited my old friend and media ecology fellow traveler, and fellow past president of the New York State Communication Association, Susan Jasko of the California University of Pennsylvania, but her duties as a new department chair proved to be too much to juggle. 

For this reason, I am pleased that Roy Christopher has agreed to serve as our new Book Review Editor. Roy is on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Chicago (and has some experience managing book reviews, as you can see from my recent posts Summer Reading for Roy Part 1 and Summer Reading for Roy Part 2).

Along similar lines, the slot of Pedagogy Editor is being filled by Heather Crandall, a professor of Communication Studies at Gonzaga University (a Jesuit school like Fordham University), who has also been director of their MA program in Communication and Leadership Studies. The original idea for the pedagogy section, that I remember talking to Judith Yaross Lee about when we started it up, was to have articles that specifically addressed the pragmatics of the classroom, the kind of thing that more recently has been referred to, at least in communications circles, as GIFTs—Great Ideas For Teaching. So our aim is to be able to publish articles that discuss how to go about teaching media ecology, resources, exercises, assignments, and teaching strategies.

A third category of contribution that has been included in the journal since the first issue is what we call Probes, a term taken from McLuhan, and the original idea was to include short think pieces or provocative items, or even something diagrammatic like McLuhan's tetrads. Probes allow for items that do not necessarily adhere to rigorous academic standards and anonymous review, but that are otherwise insightful and intellectually stimulating. Previously, EME editors have taken direct charge of evaluating and soliciting probes, but we decided it was time to make Probes a section unto itself, with its own Probes Editor, and it was truly marvelous that Nora Bateson was willing and able to fill that position. Nora is the Founder and President of the International Bateson Institute in Sweden. We then decided that adding a co-editor for this section would make sense, and Michael Plugh of Manhattan College has agreed to take on the task. Mike is a former MA student of mine, and former Fordham University colleague, and fellow Media Ecology Association officer (in charge of our online communications).

In the past, EME has published poetry under the heading of probes, and to broaden our horizons, and also to recognize that there are other ways to further our understanding than the standard academic article or essay, we decided to add a new section devoted to poetry and other forms of creative expression, with Adeena Karasick as Poetry Editor. Adeena is a world renowned poet and performance artist, and professor at Pratt Institute.

Another new addition, a feature that I've seen here and there in other journals, is the forum, a section where several scholars address a particular topic, providing short essays or opinion pieces. This provides a great opportunity to get several different takes on the same question, issue, or theme, and we're fortunate that John Dowd, Professor of Communication at Bowling Green State University, has agreed to serve as Forum Editor. Here too, we then decided to add a co-editor to improve productivity, and I am very pleased that we are to add Emanuela Patti to our team. Emanuela is affiliated with Royal Holloway, University of London, and is, among other things, a former co-editor of the short-lived International Journal of McLuhan Studies.

All right now, it's time to share the Call for Papers for EME, followed by a listing of the editors and editorial board:

Call for Submissions for Explorations in Media Ecology

All articles submitted should be original work and must not be under consideration by other publications.

Explorations in Media Ecology, the journal of the Media Ecology Association, accepts submissions that extend our understanding of media (defined in the broadest possible terms), that apply media ecological approaches, and/or that advance media ecology as a field of inquiry. As an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary publication, EME welcomes contributions embracing diverse theoretical, philosophical, and methodological approaches to the study of media and processes of mediation through language, symbols, codes, meaning, and processes of signification, abstracting, and perception; art, music, literature, aesthetics, and poetics; form, pattern, and method; materials, energy, information, technology, and technique; mind, thought, emotion, consciousness, identity, and behavior; groups, organizations, affiliations, communities; politics, economics, religion, science, education, business, and the professions; societies and cultures; history and the future; contexts, situations, systems, and environments; evolution, and ecology; the human person, human affairs, and the human condition; etc.

EME publishes peer-reviewed scholarly articles, essays, research reports, commentaries, and critical examinations, and includes several special features. Our Pedagogy Section focuses on teaching strategies and resources, pedagogical concerns, and issues relating to media ecology education; we are particularly interested in articles that share great ideas for teaching (GIFTs) media ecology in the classroom. The Probes Section features short items that are exploratory or provocative in nature. Creative writing on media ecological themes can be found in our Poetry Section. Questions of concern to media ecology scholars are taken up in our Forum Section. And our Review Section includes individual book reviews and review essays.

EME is a refereed journal. Strict anonymity is accorded to both authors and referees. References and citations should follow the Harvard Referencing system, and the journal otherwise follows standard British English for spelling and punctuation.

Submissions can be uploaded online.

Direct inquiries to

Lance Strate, Editor
Callie Gallo, Managing Editor
Roy Christopher, Review Editor
Heather Crandall, Pedagogy Editor
Adeena Karasick, Poetry Editor
John Dowd, Forum Editor
Emanuela Patti, Forum Editor
Nora Bateson, Probes Editor
Michael Plugh, Probes Editor

EME Editorial Board

Editor: Lance Strate, Fordham University, USA
Managing Editor: Callie Gallo, Fordham University, USA
Editorial Assistant: Joshua Hill, Pennsylvania College of Technology, USA

Book Review Editor: Roy Christopher, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
Pedagogy Editor: Heather Crandall, Gonzaga University, USA
Probes Editor: Nora Bateson, International Bateson Institute, Sweden
Probes Editor: Michael Plugh, Manhattan College, USA
Poetry Editor: Adeena Karasick, Pratt Institute, USA
Forum Editor: John P. Dowd, Bowling Green State University, USA
Forum Editor: Emanuela Patti, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Catherine Adams, University of Alberta, Canada
Robert Albrecht, New Jersey City University, USA
Corey Anton, Grand Valley State University, USA
Ronald C. Arnett, Duquesne University, USA
Eva Berger, The College of Management and Academic Studies, Israel
Sheryl P. Bowen, Villanova University, USA
Adriana Braga, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Jay David Bolter, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Kimberly Casteline, Fordham University, USA
James W. Chesebro, Ball State University, USA
Brian Cogan, Molloy College, USA
Ronald J. Deibert, University of Toronto, Canada
Susan Drucker, Hofstra Univesity, USA
Gerald J. Erion. Medaille College. USAv Peter K. Fallon, Roosevelt University, USAv Donald Fishman, Boston College, USA
Katherine Fry, Brooklyn College, USA
Thomas F. Gencarelli, Manhattan College. USA
Stephanie B. Gibson, University of Baltimore, USA
Twyla Gibson, University of Missouri, USA
Paul Grosswiler, University of Maine, USA
Gary Gumpert, Urban Communication Foundation, USA
Fernando Gutiérrez, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexicov Maurice L. Hall, Villanova University, USA
Paul Heyer, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Renee Hobbs, University of Rhode Island, USA
Lee Humphreys, Cornell University, USA
Octavio Islas, Universidad de los Hemisferios, Ecuador
Huimin Jin, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China
Alex Kuskis, Gonzaga University, USAv Elena Lamberti, University of Bologna, Italy
Dong-Hoo Lee, University of Incheon, Korea
Paul Levinson, Fordham University, USA
Yong Li, Henan University, China
Paul Lippert, East Stroudsburg University, USA
Robert K. Logan, University of Toronto, USA
Karen Lollar, Metropolitan State University, USA
Casey Man Kong Lum, William Paterson University, USAv Brett Lunceford, Independent Scholar, USA
Robert MacDougall, Curry College, USA
Brenton J. Malin, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Eric McLuhan, Independent Scholar, Canada
Paul Messaris, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Joshua Meyrowitz, University of New Hampshire, USA
Deepa Mishra, Univesity of Mumbai, India
Terence P. Moran, New York University, USA
Sheila Nayar, Greensboro College, USA
Julianne H. Newton, University of Oregon, USA
John Pauly, Marquette University, USA
Valerie Peterson, Grand Valley State University, USA
Borys Potyatynyk, Lviv Franko National University, Ukraine
John H. Powers, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
Harald E. L. Prins, Kansas State University, USA
Ellen Rose, University of New Brunswick, Canada
Heidi Rose, Villanova University, USA
Phil Rose, York University, Canada
Douglas Rushkoff, Queens College, USA
Joseph W. Slade, Ohio University, USA
Anthony Smith, Oxford University, UK
Paul Soukup, Santa Clara University, USA
Calvin Troup, Geneva College, USA
Edward Tywoniak, Saint Mary's College of California, USA
Sara van den Berg, Saint Louis University, USA
Barbie Zelizer, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Min Zhou, Shanghai International Studies University, China

And there you have it! To subscribe, beginning with my first volume, volume 16, you need to join the Media Ecology Association for this calendar year, 2017. Also, please ask your institution's library to subscribe to the journal. And by all means, submit your work to us! No need to be shy! And hey, we're only getting started...