Read more about Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach

Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach

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Richard S. Lewis, Prescott College

Copyright Year: 2021

ISBN 13: 9781800641846

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Language: English

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CC BY

Table of Contents

  • 1. Introduction: Problematizing our Relations with Media Technologies
  • Part I: Situating the Interdisciplinary Concepts
    • 2. Situating Media Literacy
    • 3. Understanding the Medium Through the Technological Relation
    • 4. The Posthuman: Situating the Subject in Human-Tech Relations
  • Part II: Developing a Posthuman Approach: A Framework and Instrument
    • 5. Developing the Intrasubjective Mediating Framework
    • 6. Developing an Instrument to Leverage the Framework
    • 7. Conclusion

Ancillary Material

  • Open Book Publishers

    • About the Book

    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.

    About the Contributors

    Author

    Richard S. Lewis is currently faculty—and the library director—at Prescott College (an innovative and experiential university in the US focused on the environment and social justice). He completed his interdisciplinary doctorate in Philosophy of Technology and Media & Communications Studies from the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) in 2020, following that with a one-year postdoc at the Catholic University of Lille. His posthuman approach brings philosophical posthumanism together with postphenomenology, media ecology, and complexity to better understand the impact of media and technology at both the personal and sociocultural levels. He earned his Master’s in 2003 from the University of Arizona in information research and library sciences, with a concentration on the usability of technology.

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