As media evolution is driven by the technological imperative (media seeking better performance), AI may not need agency at all. Hello, media determinists. This blog was paused for a while because I was busy finishing my book The technological imperative. Why… Read More ›
A chapter from The Digital Reversal. Thread-Saga of Media Evolution. With the internet, news reliability might have degraded, but overall, people became better informed. This flipped the value in content production: news stopped being a commodity and became bait to attract… Read More ›
Media are the hardware of society, and culture is its software. Society follows the patterns set by media. If oral speech was the medium of orality and written speech was the medium of literacy, digital speech is the medium of… Read More ›
Alphabetic writing visualized not the objects or the ideas of objects but speech itself. Viewing recorded speech meant seeing the “footprints” of thinking. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. The… Read More ›
This is an appendix to my review of Michel Desmurget’s 2022 book Screen Damage: The Dangers of Digital Media for Children. At the end of the book, Desmurget suggests “Seven Fundamental Rules.” However, they do not actually resemble a clear list, so I have… Read More ›
In the early 2010s, old institutions transitioned to Web 2.0 and adopted the values of early digital users—young, urban, educated, progressive. The news media, desperately hoping for digital prospects after losing traditional revenues, were the first and the most affected… Read More ›
As was the case with McLuhan, academia still struggles to appreciate media ecology. Communication departments tend to divide the field between an administrative approach and cultural criticism. The administrative approach, most clearly associated with the Columbia School and later empirical/effects-oriented… Read More ›
A triple review of Andrey Mir’s “Human as Media,” “Postjournalism,” and “Digital Future in the Rear View Mirror.” (Excerpts from William Kuhns’ review in: New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication, Vol 4 No 1 (Spring 2024). By William Kuhns… Read More ›
Is the rise of digital media causing the fall of literacy? A review of Andrey Mir’s Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect in City Journal, excerpts. Despite the hopes and fears invested in… Read More ›
Primary orality – Craft Literacy – Phantom Literacy – Semi-literacy – General Literacy – Residual Orality – Secondary Orality (Electronic Orality) – Emancipated Authorship – Digital Orality – Digital Sensorium. An excerpt from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial… Read More ›
Human as Media 