Talking Tom Wolfe

Since my last few posts have been on poetry and the theater, it strikes me as appropriate, or at least not altogether inappropriate, to continue with a literary theme. And yes, I know that technically there is a world of difference between the literature and performance, but they do tie together as art forms that are based, more or less, on the word. And anyway, I'm just looking for an excuse, after all, to get this post off the ground.

So, I want to take this opportunity to share another New York Society for General Semantics program that was held on June 27th of 2018. The program was devoted to discussing Tom Wolfe, who had passed away the previous month. And I want to note here that I had the opportunity to meet Tom Wolfe for the first time in 1999, when he gave a Marshall McLuhan Lecture at Fordham University, preceded the evening before by a special dinner at the Canadian Consulate. We also corresponded and spoke on the phone on several occasions, and he generously allowed us to include his poems inspired by McLuhan in the anthology I co-edited with Adeena Karasick, The Medium Is the Muse [Channeling Marshall McLuhan].

It was, therefore, sad news indeed to learn of Wolfe's passing, and it seemed altogether appropriate to organize a program paying tribute to him. The session, entitled, Tom Wolfe, Man of Letters, Man of Words, had the following write-up on the NYSGS website:

On May 14th, the world lost one of its most celebrated, talented, and accomplished authors, Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr., best known simply as Tom Wolfe. Wolfe earned his PhD in American Studies from Yale University in 1957, and worked as a newspaper reporter for a decade, writing for periodicals such as the Washington Post and the New York Herald-Tribune, as well as New York magazine and Esquire.

Wolfe pioneered the use of a personal, literary style in news reporting and feature writing that became known as the New Journalism. A best selling author, his nonfiction works include The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965); The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968); The Pump House Gang (1968); Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970); and Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (1976). His examination and critique of the contemporary American art scene, The Painted Word (1975), proved to be extremely controversial. His history of the early space program The Right Stuff (1979), was adapted as a feature film by Phillip Kaufman in 1983.

His book, In Our Time (1980), featured his own artwork, while From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), as a follow-up to The Painted Word, took on the topic of American architecture. Wolfe turned novelist with the publication of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), which was followed by A Man in Full (1998), I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), and Back to Blood (2012). Hooking Up (2001) collected several works of his short fiction coupled with several of his essays.

Tom Wolfe was an early promoter of media ecology scholar Marshall McLuhan, famously posing the question, "What if he's right?" in a 1965 essay published in New York magazine, and comparing McLuhan to the likes of Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Pavlov. Wolfe's last book, The Kingdom of Speech (2016), a critique of Noam Chomsky's approach to linguistics, was awarded the Institute of General Semantics's S. I. Hayakawa Book Prize at last year's [2017] annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, which was co-sponsored by the NYSGS.

I am going to interrupt the quote here to state that it was truly a privilege to have Tom Wolfe with us at the 2017 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture. And his brief acceptance speech upon receiving the Hayakawa Book Prize was itself quite memorable, and fortunately preserved on video:





And now, let me return to the NYSGS program description:

Wolfe is credited with coining a number of terms, including the right stuff, radical chic, the Me Decade, good ol' boy, and statusphere. As an author and journalist, he was truly a man of letters, to invoke an old fashioned phrase that fits well with the famous man in a white suit, as he was known. And as a student and scholar of language, art, media, and communication, as well as a writer, interviewer, and raconteur, he most certainly was also a man of words.

On June 27th, 2018, the New York Society for General Semantics honored his contributions, creative and intellectual, and celebrated his achievements with a special panel discussion on select aspects of his career and publications.

The participants on this program were:

Thom Gencarelli, Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, and the Board of Directors of the NYSGS, and the new editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics.

Martin Levinson, author of several books on general semantics including a forthcoming new edition of Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, President of the Institute of General Semantics and Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Lance Strate, author of several books including the award-winning Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

The program was moderated by Jacqueline Rudig, Treasurer of the Institute of General Semantics, and member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics.

It was a thoughtful and belletristic discussion!

And here now is the recording of the program:






And I have to say that, in my opinion, this was one of the best programs we've had since I've been organizing them for the society. Don't you agree?

A Noteworthy Nugget

It's a small item, but certainly blogworthy here on my official blog of record: This past summer, my new book, Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, was included in an online Fordham News piece entitled New and Noteworthy from Fordham Faculty, featuring six new books.

The byline goes to Janet Sassi, and the item is dated August 9, 2017, with my book in the lead position. A picture of the book cover is included, and if you've read my previous posts, you know that I really love that cover, so let's include it here as well: 

And let's follow with the short piece, based in part on a brief phone interview with me: 

Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, by Lance Strate, Ph.D. (Peter Lang, 2017)

In his new book, Strate, professor of communication and media studies, examines how smartphones, apps, and social media shape us as human beings. He expands on an intellectual tradition, one spearheaded by Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan (who taught at Fordham), that’s about much more than understanding any one particular medium.

“It starts with the understanding that those things we pay attention to, like screens, are not just gadgets,” he said. “We think we can turn them on or off, but when you look at them as part of our environment, we can’t escape them.”

Even people who don’t use social media will be inadvertently affected by it, said Strate, because its use is ubiquitous—much the same as persons who don’t fly and yet must contend with planes continuously flying overhead. “We are living in an environment that is full of these mediations that influence us.”

“We all speak with a language we didn’t create. That influences how we express ourselves and in how we think,” he said.

Oh, and by the way, before the six quick takes, this new and noteworthy item included a picture of four of us, which is also worth sharing here: 

Maybe not my best angle, but we pull no punches here at Blog Time Passing! And don't worry, this won't be the last you hear about my book... 

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...

Media Ecology: Some Details Regarding My New Book

So, if you know me personally, or connect to me via Twitter, Facebook, or the Media Ecology Association's discussion list, this may not be news to you, but it's time to make the announcement here on Blog Time Passing, my official blog of record. And even if you have already got the message, I'll add some extra details that may make it worthwhile sticking around.

So here goes, drum roll and trumpets please: My new book, Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (New York: Peter Lang, 2017) is now in print and available for sale through Amazon and many other fine booksellers. Hurray!!!

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And here's the publisher's write-up of the book, a bit of promotional hyperbole there, but still it will give you an idea of what it's about, in case that's not entirely clear:

Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition provides a long-awaited and much anticipated introduction to media ecology, a field of inquiry defined as the study of media as environments. Lance Strate presents a clear and concise explanation of an intellectual tradition concerned with much more than understanding media, but rather with understanding the conditions that shape us as human beings, drive human history, and determine the prospects for our survival as a species.

Much more than a summary, this book represents a new synthesis that moves the field forward in a manner that is both unique and unprecedented, and simultaneously grounded in an unparalleled grasp of media ecology's intellectual foundations and its relation to other disciplines. Taking as its subject matter "life, the universe, and everything," Strate describes the field as interdisciplinary and communication-centered, provides a detailed explication of McLuhan's famous aphorism, "the medium is the message," and explains that the human condition can only be understood in the context of our biophysical, technological, and symbolic environments.

Strate provides an in-depth examination of media ecology's four key terms: medium, which is defined in much broader terms than in other fields; bias, which refers to tendencies inherent in materials and methods; effects, which are best understood via the Aristotelian notion of formal causality and contemporary systems theory; and environment, which includes the distinctions between the oral, chirographic, typographic, and electronic media environments. A chapter on tools serves as a guide to further media ecological research and scholarship. This book is well suited for graduate and undergraduate courses on communication theory and philosophy.

And you gotta have blurbs, so here are mine (and I really do appreciate them, thank you Julie, Paul, and Josh!):

With characteristic passion and soulfulness, Lance Strate embarks on a metatask: to synthesize thinking about ‘life, the universe and everything’ through the lens of media ecology. In the process, he locates media ecology as the dynamic shift between figure and ground and as the basis for ‘understanding the human condition.’ Writing with an almost disarming ease that belies the complexity of the ideas he communicates, Strate brilliantly and reflexively mediates media ecology itself, bringing clarity to the Kekulé-like conundrums of an immense and increasingly relevant field. Anyone who thoughtfully enters and engages the environment of Strate’s book will be rewarded with moments of profound clarity, connecting ideas typically viewed as disparate or oppositional into patterns of deep understanding about media ecology―and about the process of living.―Julianne H. Newton, Professor of Visual Communication, University of Oregon 

Lance Strate’s synthetic thinking in Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition opens up media ecology, allowing the reader to see how, as a field of inquiry, it applies to everything from language, media, and philosophy to our very understanding of what it means to be human living in a dynamic environment. Along the way Strate shows how media ecology connects with all the major approaches to communication study.―Paul Soukup, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, Santa Clara University

Lance Strate asks big questions―and provides a myriad of perceptive answers. This book is at once playful, poetic, and precise. The clear writing about complex ideas is a pleasure to read and offers many gifts of understanding.―Joshua Meyrowitz, University of New Hampshire

And let me tell you about the cover. The publisher asked if I had  any instructions for the graphics designer, and I did have some ideas. One was the color, violet, like the color of the cover of Hannah Arendt's most influential philosophical work, The Human Condition:

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While the color isn't exactly the same, it does evoke Arendt's work, and her understanding of the human condition serves as a foundation for my own media ecological discussion of the conditions of human life, which is another way of saying the environments that shape and are shaped by our species. 

As an added bonus, violet also has a connection to New York University, home of the original, late lamented Media Ecology Program founded by Neil Postman and Terry Moran, who were soon joined by Christine Nystrom. While NYU's colors are purple and white, their athletic teams are called the Violets, and according to the Wikipedia entry on the NYU Violets, 

For more than a century, NYU athletes have worn violet and white colors in competition, which is the root of the nickname Violets. In the 1980s, after briefly using a student dressed as a violet for a mascot, the school instead adopted the bobcat as its mascot, from the abbreviation then being used by NYU's Bobst Library computerized catalog.

Additionally, for a period of time, I would join Postman, Nystrom, and others for lunch or a snack at an NYU eatery called The Violet. But I should also note that the way the colors turned out in different shades, the cover also offers a hint of Fordham University's school colors, maroon and white. Again, however, my main goal was to pay homage to Hannah Arendt.

In addition to the color scheme, the use of the three internally tangential circles follows one of the main diagrams included in the book, one depicting the three basic human conditions or media environments (the biophysical as the outer ring, the technological inside of it, and the symbolic as the inner ring; I used internally tangential circles rather than concentric circles because I wanted a point of intersection between the three, rather than having the symbolic fully cut off and separated from the biophysical by being surrounded by the technological, because there is direct interaction between the biophysical and the symbolic).

The way the three circles are arranged is also meant to evoke another book cover, one of the many editions of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, the most commonly cited work in the field of media ecology, and in many ways the work most central to it. The edition in question was one of the old pocketbook-sized paperback editions, with an image of a light bulb done up in Christmas-like colors:

I should note at this juncture that the original title I had in mind for this book was Understanding Media Ecology, and that goes back some two decades. But when I agreed to launch a new media ecology book series with the publisher Peter Lang,  they wanted a name for the series that would distinguish it from the Media Ecology series I had with Hampton Press, and I tossed out a few possibilities including Understanding Media Ecology, and that was the one they wanted to go with. So this book is, in fact, Volume 1 of Peter Lang's Understanding Media Ecology book series (this despite the fact that several books were published in the series prior to mine, a decision I had nothing to do with I hasten to add).

So I gave up my direct allusion to McLuhan's main work, and decided to go with a simpler and more direct title, Media Ecology. As for the subtitle, I use approach because it avoids the visual metaphor of perspective or even theory, as McLuhan and other media ecologists have been critical of the visualism of western culture, favoring acoustic metaphors instead; I also used this term because I wanted to place a certain degree of emphasis on media ecology as a method or way of understanding, a path, or tao if you like, and not just a field or intellectual tradition or set of theories. 

I did retrieve understanding in the subtitle to retain a connection to Understanding Media. And I had it read, An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, to indicate the connection to Arendt, but also and perhaps more importantly to emphasize the fact that media ecology is about much more than media as the term is commonly understood. Indeed, media ecology is very much about the human condition, about the conditions that we exist within, that influence us, and are in turn influenced by us. Or to invoke Douglas Adams, as I do in the book, it's about life, the universe, and everything.

But back to what I was saying about the graphic design: I also suggested having the circles take up all or most of the front cover, and given their relative lengths, having my name in the innermost and smallest circle, having the book title in the middle circle, and having the rather longish subtitle in the outermost and largest circle. So, that was my input, and I am very, very pleased with the way it turned out. It's rather striking, don't you think?

Now, maybe you'd like to know a little more about the book before going ahead and buying it? To which, I respond, what's the matter, don't you trust me? But sure, I understand, so let's start with the book's own listings:

Does that help a bit? Maybe a little, but I bet a more detailed listing of the contents would be even better. I actually wanted to include a Table of Contents that included the breakdown by sections within each chapter, which I decided to number, following the example of Lewis Mumford in many of his books, but the publisher just went with the one I showed you above. (I have also incorporated the List of Illustrations here, which does appear in the book, and which are numbered according to their requirements, based on chapter number and order within the chapter.) What follows does not include the page numbers, since it was produced with the manuscript, before it went into page layout, but I think it will help provide more of a sense of what's in the book:

Contents

Illustrations

Figure 4.1 The Three Human Conditions/Media Environments
Figure 7.1 A Model of Communication Based on Formal Cause
Figure 8.1 The Ziggurat Model of the Oral Media Environment
Figure 8.2 The Ziggurat Model of the Chirographic Media Environment
Figure 8.3 The Ziggurat Model of the Typographic Media Environment
Figure 8.4 The Ziggurat Model of the Electronic Media Environment
Figure 8.5 The Alternate Ziggurat Model of the Electronic Media Environment
Figure 9.1 Pathways for Media Ecology Scholarship

Preface
 1: A First Word

Chapter 1   An Introduction
 1: Life, the Universe, and Everything
 2: Defining Media Ecology
 3: The Study and the Object of Study
 4: Field of Inquiry, Field of Study

Chapter 2   Intersections
 1: The Field of Communication
 2: Grammar, Linguistics, Semiotics, Aesthetics, Etc.
 3: General Semantics
 4: Information, Cybernetics, and Systems
 5: Media and Society
 6: Medium Theory
 7: Media Studies and Cultural Studies
 8: Human Ecology
 9: Psychology and Biology
10: Science and Technology Studies
11: History and Historiography
12: Futurology
13: Media Education and Media Literacy
14: Philosophy and Theology
15: Formalism and Materialities
16: Humanism
17: Technological Determinism
18: Praxis and Activism

Chapter 3   Understanding Media Ecology
 1: What Is Media Ecology?
 2: The Medium is the Message

Chapter 4   The Human Condition
 1: The Human Medium
 2: Nature and Culture
 3: The Technological Condition
 4: The Symbolic World

Chapter 5   Medium
 1: Understanding Media
 2: Media and Medium (A Note on Usage)
 3: From Printing to Mass Communication
 4: Transportation and Transmission
 5: Mediated Communication, New Media, Social Media
 6: Substance and Sensation
 7: Words
 8. Form
 9: Human Bodies as Media
10: Relationship
11: Technology and Technique
12: Environment and Process
13: Summation

Chapter 6   Bias
 1: The Bias of Communication
 2: The Nature of Bias
 3: The Myth of Neutrality
 4: Design and Function
 5: The Bias of the Medium

Chapter 7    Effects
 1: An Effects Tradition
 2: Impact and Ecology
 3: Some Basics Regarding Science and the Limits of Knowledge
 4: Causality
 5: Formal Cause
 6: Systems and Emergence

Chapter 8   Environment
 1: Me and Not-Me
 2: Ecosystems and Networks
 3: Towards a Media Eco-Logic
 4: Media Environments

Chapter 9   Tools
 1: Context Analysis
 2: Studying Media as Media
 3: Studying the Biases of a Medium
 4: Studying Effects
 5: Studying Environments

Chapter 10   Conclusion
 1: A Last Word

Index

And while I didn't get my author's copies of the book until later, according to Amazon, the book was officially published on the Fourth of July. So I guess you could say it represents an Independence Day of sorts, maybe in some ways for media ecology, certainly for me. What I mean is that, over the years, I have encounter many misunderstandings about media ecology, as well as a number of objections to various aspects of our field, and the book incorporates my responses to those misunderstandings and objections, and hopefully answers them in a way that might put them to rest (probably not, given that it's hard to change people's minds, even in the face of rational argument and evidence, but hope springs eternal). So, along with being a summary and new synthesis intended to move the field forward, it should also serve as a defense against the dark arts that have been aligned against media ecology over the years.

I do feel a certain sense of obligation to my mentors, Neil Postman and Christine Nystrom, and especially to Chris who tried her best to present media ecology as a coherent and organized field, rather than simply a series of probes and percepts. And in that sense, this was a book that I needed to write. I kinda had the feeling that if I died before this book was completed, my shade would not be able to rest easy. Which is also why the book is by no means all that it could be, because I had to limit what I would cover and the amount of time I would put into it, or the book would never have been finished (not to mention that I had word count limits imposed by the publisher, which I significantly exceeded). But with this book, I do believe I have fulfilled the obligation that I felt to Chris and Neil (an obligation that they never placed on me I hasten to add), as well as to my colleagues, students, friend, and fellow travelers, to media ecologists present and future. Whew!

An Inspirational Video

So, for a number of summers now, I've been teaching an online class at Fordham, on Writing for Online Media, mainly about blogging. The students get to create and write for their own blogs, on themes and topics of their own choosing. And one of my students this summer has been blogging about art, including galleries museums, and special exhibitions. A recent post on her blog, which is called Mona Lisa by the way, was on A Blog that Inspires: Colossal, which in turn directed me to check out another blog on art and design called Colossal, and specifically a post entitled Where Do Ideas Come From? A Short Film by Andrew Norton Tackles the Nature of Inspiration.

If you're following me so far, well then, that blog post featured a video by a filmmaker named Andrew Norton on the nature of creativity, inspiration, and the source of original ideas. The video, Where Do Ideas Come From?, can be found over on Vimeo, the YouTube alternative favored by many serious and professional videographers. And it's also embedded over on the Colossal blog, so why not include it here on Blog Time Passing, I thought to myself. And so, here it is:


Where Do Ideas Come From? from Andrew Norton on Vimeo.


And you can rightly infer from the fact that I've included it here that I think it's pretty nifty, and worth a look-see. Oh, and here is the write-up from the Vimeo page:

A short film about the mysteries of inspiration.

Featuring thoughts on the subject by:
David Lynch
Robert Krulwich
Chuck Close
Tracy Clayton & Heben Nigatu
Ray Barbee
Lulu Miller
Susan Orlean
and a couple of kids named Mason and Ursula

Presented by transom.org
With funding from The National Endowment for the Arts
For more about this video, visit:
transom.org/2017/where-do-ideas-come-from/

The Transom site is run by Atlanta Public Media, and identified as "A Showcase and Workshop for New Public Radio" in case you were wondering. It's based on an idea by author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, whose work is well-recognized in media ecology circles. And it looks to be an excellent resource for anyone interested in public radio and media, podcasting, audio production, and creative endeavors more generally. If you have those sort of interests, I think it's worth checking out.

Post Truth, Alternate Facts, & Fake News

Given my previous post, Information Overload vs. Facts and Truth, and more importantly, given all that's been going on over the past year and more, it is only fitting that I share here on Blog Time Passing a panel discussion that I organized on behalf of the New York Society for General Semantics (which, as you may recall, I have been serving as president of for the past year and more).  

Here's the write-up as it appears over on the NYSGS site:

On February 8th, we held a panel discussion on the theme of post-truth, alternate facts, and fake news, all subjects of great interest within the discipline of general semantics, and issues that general semantics can help to solve. These three relatively recent coinages may be viewed as symptoms of a larger concern that our culture is in crisis, making this particular topic especially vital to try to understand.

Participants on this background hailed from a variety of backgrounds, making for an especially lively and insightful discussion about science, journalism, philosophy, and language. Here is the list of panelists:

Babette Babich, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University

Peter Brown, Science Writer and former Editor-In-Chief of The Sciences, and Natural History, and member of Scientific American's Editorial Board.

Katherine Fry, Professor of Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Television and Radio, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Paul Thaler, Professor of Communications, Adelphi University

Moderator: Lance Strate, NYSGS President & Professor of Communication & Media Studies, Fordham University

And here is the description of the program:

Post-Truth, Alternate Facts, & Fake News:

Our Culture in Crisis

On November 8th of last year, Election Day in the United States, Oxford Dictionaries announced its word of the year: post-truth. The selection represents a response to both the American presidential election campaign and Great Britain's Brexit vote.

Over the past year, the phrase fake news has also been frequently invoked, especially in regard to online communications and social media.

On January 22nd of this year, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway used the phrase alternate facts during a Meet the Press interview.

Modern science and journalism both are based on the ideal of objectivity, that we can gather data about our environment, examine the evidence available to us, and evaluate facts and claims regarding reality. General semantics is based on the understanding that scientific method can be applied to human communication, thought, and action, to the benefit of individuals, and humanity as a whole.

There is nothing new, however, about the idea that we have lost all sense of cultural coherence, that we are subject to all manner of Orwellian doublespeak, or that public discourse has been trivialized by an emphasis on sensation and amusement.

But, have we turned a corner over the past year, as the emergence of terminology like post-truth, alternate facts, and fake news might seem to suggest? Have we reached a crisis point in our culture regarding the role of rationality and reality-testing? Are we on the verge of the kind of dystopian society commonly depicted in so many of our recent young adult novels?

Or is there hope? And are there ways of coping and strategies for fighting for the future that can be adopted by writers, journalists, educators, and citizens?

 And yes, the session was recorded, we have the video, it's over on YouTube if you prefer watching it over there, or you can just scroll on down and watch it right here:










A fascinating discussion, if I do say so myself, and one every bit as relevant half a year later, if not more so!

On Blackboard

So, if you're in academia, you probably know more than a little about Blackboard. No, not the pirate, that's Blackbeard, although there is a connection of sorts, given piracy's association with digital media. And I'm not talking about the old fashioned educational technology of the chalkboard, either.

No, this is about a form of new media and digital technology used exclusively by educational institutions, brought to us by Blackboard, Inc., and its proprietary learning management system.

If you're a student, you most probably have used it for some of your classes at least. If you teach, maybe you use it, maybe you don't. For those of us who don't use it, some avoid Blackboard because they don't care for such technologies at all. 

Others, including new media mavens such as myself, are critical of it as a system and prefer to use tools that can be used outside of academia, such as those provided by Google. Doing so makes more sense if you're studying new media, and if you want to prepare students for working with new media outside of the ivory tower.

I do admit, though, that for other kinds of classes, I usually don't bother with the system, and opt for good old fashioned face-to-face interaction, and printed documents. It's not that I've never used Blackboard or would never use it in the future. I just don't love it.

Which brings me to a little article that was published last April 13th in Fordham's student newpaper, The Ram. The title was the piece is Blackboard as a Blight to Fordham Technology (I believe I gave them the Blackboard as a Blight, bit, prone as I am to hyperbole, and alliteration). The article was authored by Margarita Artoglou and Kristen Santer, in case you were wondering, and it begins like this:

The use of technology in the classrooms at Fordham can be extremely varied. One class may rely on technology, while another completely disregards it. Although students may bemoan the small bandwidth of Fordham Wi-Fi or the occasional faulty smartboard, most professors find that Fordham’s IT services and technology offerings are average compared to other schools.

Now as it continues we come to a relevant point:

Fordham offers several workshops to help get professors accustomed to new technology offerings and IT updates. Some of the workshops include introductions to SMARTBoards, Blackboard and creating and editing video files. Professor Lance Strate also agreed with the general consensus, “It’s a progression for sure, but I have seen schools that are much worse off than we are as far as not having [technological resources].”

Umm, I don't think the quote quite reflects what I was talking about, but let's say there's a spectrum, and maybe Fordham is somewhere in the middle, with our level of technology not as good as it could be, but better than a number of other schools. Of course, in some ways it would be better to have no technology at all than to have some technology that doesn't work quite work, and that leaves everyone feeling frustrated.

Be that as it may, let's turn to my friend, former student, and colleague, now teaching at Manhattan College, Mike Plugh, for a comment:

The continuous problem that professors seem to have with Fordham’s technology is Blackboard. Michael Plugh, a Communication and Media Studies professor, finds it frustrating. “Everything at Fordham is pretty straightforward, except Blackboard,” he said. “I’m sort of unwilling to get invested in Blackboard because I’m not convinced it has a life beyond itself.”

A scholar after my own heart, let me echo Mike's sentiments:;

Other dissatisfied professors with Blackboard were not as nice as Plugh. “I hate Blackboard,” Professor Lance Strate said. “I understand why it’s used but I think it’s a really badly designed system.” It seems that discontent may be an understatement of the professors’ feelings about Blackboard. It clearly seems to cause more problems instead of making them simpler and more convenient.

That's right, baby, I tell it like it is. But am I lone voice crying out in the wilderness? Maybe not:

Strate is not alone in terms of his problems with Blackboard. Many professors dismiss the system completely and use alternative, free software to communicate with their students. Among them is Professor Cornelius Collins, who finds Google Drive to be a much smoother user experience than Blackboard. “There are fewer steps [with Google Drive],” Collins said. “It’s integrated with students email and it suits my purposes. I find that Blackboard has built in so much functionality that it’s hard to do it in a streamlined way.”

 And then there's that important tenet in investigative journalism—follow the money trail:

At the point where professors are shunning paid-for software in favor of free substitutes, it is clear that Blackboard represents a blight on Fordham’s technological progress. Furthermore, if professors are choosing not to use Blackboard, then the university is needlessly wasting money on the program that could instead be put toward more fruitful pursuits.

All right now, let's cut to the chase, get to the nitty gritty, and hear from the students:

In addition, many Fordham students are disillusioned by Blackboard. “It’s completely disorganized. I never know what assignments are posted for what day,” Nicole Cappuccio, FCRH ‘18, said.

Students have also expressed distaste with the way that professors under-utilize the application. “None of my professors ever use the grading system on Blackboard either, and I think that’s a waste when I could be keeping tabs on my grades that way,” said Cappuccio.

And now, bringing the opinion-oriented article to a conclusion, here's what Artoglou and Santer have to say:

It is quite clear that Blackboard is an inferior platform for grading and source materials, especially when free platforms like Google Drive and WordPress are easily accessible. Fordham definitely needs to update Blackboard, either to a better platform or to a more workable interface with fewer bugs. However, the question becomes whether a university-wide platform like Blackboard is even necessary. Professors can just as easily use Google Drive and WordPress, and often prefer to.

Perhaps instead of spending money teaching professors how to use Blackboard, it could offer programs to help teach students basic technology, software and coding skills.  

 And there you have it!  And I certainly second the sentiment regarding teaching students about technology and coding, as a kind of literacy, media, digital, etc., that would go a long way in contributing to their education, when coupled with a sound liberal arts curriculum that helps them to learn how to think, how to think well (and critically), and simply, how to think.