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Media literacy is often focused on evaluating the message rather than reflecting on the medium. Bringing together postphenomenology, media ecology, posthumanism, and complexity theory, Richard Lewis’s book offers a method for such a reflection and shows how our everyday media environments constitute us as (post)human subjects: one that is becoming and constitutes through relations – also with our media technologies. An original interdisciplinary effort – including for example the term 'intrasubjective mediation' – and a must-read book for everyone interested in how we become with and through technologies.

Prof Mark Coeckelbergh, University of Vienna

Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject is a clearly and concisely written book that employs a fruitful transdisciplinary approach. It at once offers an excellent grounding in the literature, whilst simultaneously developing a useful tool for students to reflect deeply and critically upon their own engagement with media. Thoroughly recommended.

Alexander Thomas, University of East London

What does it mean to be media literate in today’s world? How are we transformed by the many media infrastructures around us? We are immersed in a world mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs). From hardware like smartphones, smartwatches, and home assistants to software like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, our lives have become a complex, interconnected network of relations. Scholarship on media literacy has tended to focus on developing the skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages without considering or weighing the impact of the technological medium—how it enables and constrains both messages and media users. Additionally, there is often little attention paid to the broader context of interrelations which affect our engagement with media technologies.

This book addresses these issues by providing a transdisciplinary method that allows for both practical and theoretical analyses of media investigations. Informed by postphenomenology, media ecology, philosophical posthumanism, and complexity theory the author proposes both a framework and a pragmatic instrument for understanding the multiplicity of relations that all contribute to how we affect—and are affected by—our relations with media technology. The author argues persuasively that the increased awareness provided by this posthuman approach affords us a greater chance for reclaiming some of our agency and provides a sound foundation upon which we can then judge our media relations. This book will be an indispensable tool for educators in media literacy and media studies, as well as academics in philosophy of technology, media and communication studies, and the post-humanities.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Media ecology

Web

Posthumanism

Complexity theory

World Wide Web

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Publié par	Open Book Publishers
Date de parution	03 juin 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781800641853
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	14 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0022€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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TECHNOLOGY, MEDIA LITERACY, AND THE HUMAN SUBJECT

Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject
A Posthuman Approach
Richard S. Lewis

https://www.openbookpublishers.com
© 2021 Richard S. Lewis

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Richard S. Lewis, Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2021), https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253
Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ from the above. This information is provided in the captions and in the list of illustrations.
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253#copyright
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253#resources
Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher.
ISBN Paperback: 9781800641822
ISBN Hardback: 9781800641839
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800641846
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781800641853
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781800641860
ISBN XML: 9781800641877
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0253
Cover image: Albert György, Mélancolie (2012). Photo by Marieke S. Lewis (2019), CC-NC-ND. Cover Design by Anna Gatti.

For my brother, Kenneth 1961–1971
This research was made possible thanks to the support of the Hauts-de-France Region, the Research Commission, and the ETHICS laboratory of the Catholic University of Lille.

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
1. Introduction: Problematizing our Relations with Media Technologies 1
Situating the Research 2
Media Literacy 6
The Non-neutrality of Technological Relations 10
Which Human Subject? 13
Situating Media Literacy with Intrasubjective Mediation 14
Research Significance and Design 15
The Layout of the Chapters 20
Concluding Thoughts 22
Part I : Situating the Interdisciplinary Concepts
2. Situating Media Literacy 27
Communication Beyond the Transmission Model 28
Media Literacy Overview 31
Expanding Media Literacy 42
Concluding Thoughts 49
3. Understanding the Medium Through the Technological Relation 53
In Medias Res 54
Postphenomenology and the Technological Relation 57
Media Ecology 67
Concluding Thoughts 84
4. The Posthuman: Situating the Subject in Human-Tech Relations 87
Humanists and Transhumanists Debating Enhancement 88
The Posthuman Subject 100
Complexity: The Key to Understanding Human Becomings 108
Part II : Developing a Posthuman Approach: A Framework and Instrument
5. Developing the Intrasubjective Mediating Framework 123
Situating the Intrasubjective Mediating Framework 124
Intrasubjective Mediation 127
The Intrasubjective Mediating Framework 129
Intrasubjective Mediation: A Dance of Complexity 154
Concluding Thoughts 158
6. Developing an Instrument to Leverage the Framework 165
Creating the Instrument 166
Identifying the Multiplicity of Relations 167
Generalizing the Framework and Instrument for Media Literacy 186
Concluding Thoughts 197
7. Conclusion 201
Summary of Main Findings 201
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study 204
Recommendations 206
Final Thoughts 210
References 213
List of Tables and Illustrations 239
Index 243

Acknowledgements
Writing this book made it abundantly clear to me how very un-solitary the process of writing is. This is not a work by an ‘individual’, but rather an assemblage of people, ideas, collaborations, support, and love from both humans and non-humans. Two people who have had a major hand in shaping this book—Yoni Van Den Eede and Joke Bauwens—were generous in both their support and criticism, encouraging my diverse interests while also gently keeping me from veering too far off my own path. Their critical feedback has been invaluable in keeping my words and ideas on track. I am also indebted to my colleagues Cathy Adams, Alberto Romele, Laurence Claeys, and Marc Van Den Bossche for their insightful feedback and guidance in the shaping of this work.
I am deeply grateful to my wife, Marieke, who has supported me emotionally, financially, and academically. From her authentically loving self to her brilliance as an editor, she has encouraged me throughout this adventure. I also thank my children, Eli and Georgia, for their support and encouragement for me to leave the country for four-plus years in order to pursue my dream of living overseas. As well, I thank my parents and extended parents (Erlene and Robert, Bill and Charlie, and Helene and Donald), whose love, upbringing, friendship, and continual financial support have helped immensely. I am also blessed with two wonderful siblings, Mark who courageously and creatively also has leaped into the unknown and followed his entrepreneurial dreams, and LJ whose own passion for living an authentic life, as well as their academic brilliance, inspire me and give me confidence to pursue my own eclectic interests whole-heartedly. I am also indebted to my cousin Teri and her son Colby for rescuing me with some last minute design work.
I thank my wonderful colleagues in several research departments (CEMESO/ECHO and ETHU) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel as well as the ETHICS group (EA 7446) at the Catholic University of Lille who have inspired, supported, and challenged me. I want to thank all those who provided feedback during my many conference presentations, as well as all the conversations that I have had with colleagues from the field of philosophy of technology and posthumanism. I am thankful for the generous financial support of Prescott College, the Communications Sciences department at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Catholic University of Lille, and the Region Hauts-de-France. My hope is that through all of this support the ideas developed in this book can help contribute to making the world a better place by helping us dance with the technologies in our lives with more intentionality and awareness.

Chapter Summary
Situating the Research 2
Media Literacy 6
Four Approaches to Media Literacy 6
Benefits of Expanding Media Literacy 8
The Non-neutrality of Technological Relations 10
Technological Mediation as Relation: A Micro Approach 10
Media Environments: A Macro Approach 11
Which Human Subject? 13
Situating Media Literacy with Intrasubjective Mediation 14
Research Significance and Design 15
Use of Language 16
Designing Interdisciplinary Research and a Transdisciplinary Solution 18
The Layout of the Chapters 20
Concluding Thoughts 22

1. Introduction: Problematizing our Relations with Media Technologies

© 2021 Richard S. Lewis, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253.01
We are immersed in a world mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs ), both hardware (smartphones , smartwatches, home assistants) and software (algorithms , software programs, and infrastructures such as Facebook , Instagram , Twitter, Snapchat). We are transformed by these media, whether we have invited them into our lives or not. We subsequently perceive and engage with the world through these transformations . However, media literacy for the most part does not provide clear assistance in helping us become aware of these effects.
Thus far, media literacy has focused mainly on developing the skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages, and has not focused sufficiently on the impact of the actual technological medium, how it enables and constrains both messages and media users. Additionally, a more fully developed media literacy would situate media investigations in such a way as to allow for a deeply practical analysis without losing a holistic, theoretical perspective. In order to accomplish this, a concise transdisciplinary approach comprised of a general framework and specific instrument is proposed. This approach is based on an interdisciplinary study of postphenomenology, media ecology, philosophical posthumanism, and complexity theory.
The framework of the approach described in this book uses six groupings of relations: technological, sociocultural, time, space, mind, and body, with a main emphasis on technological relations. How these relations, as well as their interrelational effects, participate in the constitution of the human subject is explored through an analysis of a museum selfie, which contributes to the development of a pragmatic instrument that can be used for media literacy.
The pragmatic instrument helps bring to the foreground the contributing influences that are continually constituting huma