MEA @ NCA
The National Communication Association (NCA) is a non-profit organization of approximately 7,100 educators, practitioners, and students who work and reside in every U.S. state and more than twenty foreign countries. NCA’s purpose is to promote study, criticism, research, teaching, and application of the artistic, humanistic, and scientific principles of communication.
As an affiliate organization of NCA, the MEA is in a position to showcase its members’ research in media ecology at NCA’s annual convention.
Here are this year’s MEA-sponsored panels.
The Media Ecology Association Program
National Communication Association Convention
Salt Lake City, Utah
November 8–11, 2018
Thursday, November 8th
1. Foundations and Syntheses
Sponsor: Media Ecology Association
Thu, 11/8: 11:00 AM–12:15 PM
Hilton Room: Alpine East (Second Level)
Media ecology’s foundational thinkers are frequently put in conversation with thinkers considered to be outside the field’s typical range. Likewise, foundational media ecologists are often enlisted to explore aspects of the human condition across a wide range of distinct categories. Papers presented in this session demonstrate possibilities along those arcs, and include discussions of Walter Ong, Lewis Mumford, and Marshall McLuhan.
Participants:
- Thom Gencarelli, Manhattan College (Chair)
- Paul Soukup, S.J., Santa Clara University
- Margaret Mullan, East Stroudsburg University
- Robert M. Foschia, Dusquesne University
- Scott H. Church, Brigham Young University
- Matthew Barton, Southern Utah University
- Kevin Stein, Southern Utah University
2. Mediations and Musings
Sponsor: Media Ecology Association
Thu, 11/8: 2:00 PM–3:15 PM
Hilton Room: Alpine West (Second Level)
This session includes papers exploring the subject of mediation and the many ways it’s enmeshed with the human experience of our lifeworld. Topics include aesthetic creativity, human sexuality, nightmares and consciousness, smartphones as environments, and the experience of film.
Participants:
- Michael Plugh, Manhattan College (Chair)
- Barry Liss, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Waukesha Branch
- Nicholas Grodsky, Drexel University
- Jacqueline Backer, Illinois State University
- Sarah M. Webb, Brigham Young University
3. NCA Opening Session: Role-Playing the Future through the Past: A Conversation about the Lessons of History and Visions of America
Sponsor: NCA First Vice President
Thu, 11/8: 5:00 PM–6:30 PM
Salt Palace Convention Center
Ballroom A (Level 1)
Featuring, among others, the MEA’s own Thom Gencarelli, Manhattan College, playing the role of Marshall McLuhan.
Friday, November 9th
3. Interpersonal Relationships as Environments
Sponsor: Media Ecology Association
Fri, 11/9: 9:30 AM–10:45 AM
Hilton Room: Alpine West (Second Level)
This session explores interpersonal relations as environments. It seeks to increase awareness of the ways that interpersonal relations, as modes of mediation in their own right, bear upon selves and communities. One of the main figures explored throughout the panel is Ronald David Laing.
Participants:
- Corey Anton, Grand Valley State University (Chair and Presenter)
- William K. Rawlins, Ohio University (Respondent)
- Erik Garrett, Duquesne University
- Bryan Crable, Villanova University
- Kathleen Glenister Roberts, Duquesne University
- Jenna Brignola, Villanova University
4. Visualizing Media Ecology: Illustrations, Images, and Models
Sponsor: Media Ecology Association
Fri, 11/9: 12:30 PM–1:45 PM
Hilton Room: Topaz (Second Level)
This panel represents a collection of thinking on the subject of visual communication and the ways different visual media act as environments for understanding. Across the body of papers to be presented on this panel, our authors will explore a range of visual media and the possibilities of support and challenge that they represent as symbolic environments.
Participants:
- Michael Plugh, Manhattan College (Chair)
- Jeremy David Swartz, University of Oregon
- Julianne Newton, University of Oregon
- Lance Strate, Fordham University
- Rick Williams, Independent Scholar
5. Understanding the City through Media Ecology
Sponsors: Urban Communication Foundation/Media Ecology Association
Fri, 11/9: 3:30 PM–4:45 PM
Hilton Room: Grand Ballroom B (Second Level)
Exploring four types of relationships between the city and Media Ecology as fields of study, this panel explores new methodological possibilities for intertwining the two fields. While urban life, the materiality of the city, its architecture, planning and design, its communicative practices, and its reflected and reinforced ideologies, are all tied to media as environments—the links between studying these areas of the city from a Media Ecology perspective are many times missing from the urban scholarship. The presenters in this panel introduce four unique approaches for studying the city through Media Ecology, drawing upon both canonical and less traditional scholarship in communication and media studies, urban rhetoric, and radical cultural geography, aiming to provide new scholarly opportunities for both urban and media scholars. Jaqueline McLeod Rogers offers to use media ecology as a method to understand the layered complexity of city systems and infrastructures following Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift’s book “Seeing like A City,” contrasting the reach of this approach to more restrictive concept of “media geology” as expounded by Jussi Parikka. John Dowd argues for the necessity of McLuhan’s insights on figure/ground, media bias, and technological extensions for uncovering the everyday hidden structures that help create and sustain social injustice. Clayton Rosati examines the connection between the work of radical geographers of the city and media ecology, for a concrete and critical engagement with urban politics within and against conceptualizations of the “commons,” “sustainability,” and “freedom.” And Carolin Aronis, offers to analyze liminal architecture and design of the inner city built environment (e.g. balconies, porches, windows, buildings’ entrances) through their relationship with media technologies, and their function as media technologies themselves.
Participants:
- Carolin Aronis, Colorado State University (Chair and Presenter)
- Susan Drucker, Hofstra University (Respondent)
- John Dowd, Bowling Green State University
- Clayton Rosati, Bowling Green State University
- Jaqueline E. McLeod Rogers, University of Winnipeg
6. Scholars’ Office Hours
Fri, 11/9: 3:30 PM–4:45 PM
Salt Palace Convention Center
Ballroom F (Level 1)
Featuring, among others, the MEA’s own Lance Strate, Fordham University.
Saturday, November 10th
7. When Hashtags Don’t Play: #MeToo, Media Ecology, and Feminist Activism
Sponsor: Media Ecology Association
Sat, 11/10: 9:30 AM–10:45 AM
Hilton Room: Alpine East (Second Level)
When people tire of how the game of life is played, activism becomes a formidable source of individual and collective resistance. Fissures of disruption, generated by expressions of discontent with existing monopolies of power often invite dissimilar perspectives that can produce fierce sites of struggle over who will determine the rules. Seismic shifts in the cultural landscape emerge through irrepressible social movements demanding change. The #MeToo represents one such historic tumultuous transformation. The role of popular media and technological innovation in the #MeToo movement has been at times incongruent and yet definitive in its advancement. This panel will examine the #MeToo and its quest for change by exploring media ecology together with feminist activism.
Participants:
- Edward E. Tywoniak, Saint Mary’s College of California (Chair)
- Siobhan E. Smith-Jones, University of Louisville (Respondent)
- Valerie V. Peterson, Grand Valley State University (Respondent)
- Maureen Ebben, University of South Maine
- Teresita Garza, St. Edwards University
- Brandi Rogers, University of Wisconsin-Madison
8. Fun City: Urban Entertainment and Cities at Play
Sponsor: Urban Communication Foundation/Media Ecology Association
Sat, 11/10: 9:30 AM–10:45 AM
Hilton Room: Grand Ballroom A (Second Level)
What makes a fun city? Cities offer diverse opportunities to play. To some, urban play takes place in the streets with pickup games. To some, urban play takes place on the playground. To others, city streets have shifted to screens while others bring screens to city streets in order to play. Play in the city may be playing an instrument, finding an audience or a muse. Play in the city may be experienced as a dedicated sports fan, a spectator in an urban stadium. Play in the city may be the fun of people watching. Play in the city may be the melding of city branding and a global sports media event like the World Cup or Olympics.
A city and its streets function as a medium of communication. The stones and structures speak. To the extent we accept the city as medium, it is not a stretch to examine how the city may be conceived of within the functional theory of mass media and also ludenic theory of communication. Entertainment has been identified as among the four functions of mass media. entertainment is a kind of performance that provides pleasure to people. Mass media fulfill this function by providing amusement. This panel explores urban contexts of play.
Chair: Peter L. Haratonik
Presentations:
- Damion M. Waymer, North Carolina A&T State University, “Cities as Pseudo-Urban Theme Parks Cities as Pseudo-Urban Theme Parks”
- Jennifer Skinnon, University of Massachusetts and Robert MacDougall, Curry College, “Digital and Urban Divides in and around City Play Spaces: of Accessibility and Use of Public Parks and Spaces in Boston”
- Thomas F. Gencarelli, Manhattan College, “Playing in the Streets and in the Stations: Some Observations on Busking as our Urban Soundtrack”
- Gary Gumpert, Urban Communication Foundation, “Street Games”
- Susan Drucker, Hofstra University, “The Urban Communication Dilemma of Hosting Mega Sports Events”
- Erik Garrett, “Zoos as Places of Environmental Connection and Play in the City”
9. Exploring Alternative Ecologies: Politics, Activism, Trolling, and Testing Theories
Sponsor: Media Ecology Association
Sat, 11/10: 11:00 AM–12:15 PM
Hilton Room: Granite Conference Center (Lobby Level)
Media ecology emphasizes the importance of media in shaping human behavior and activity. The rise of social media platforms and increased user engagement via computers, smartphones, and tablets across the world is altering the ways in which people communicate, date, debate, perform activism, maintain friendships, and gather news information. A growing body of work that examines media’s influence, potentials, and dangers has developed to engage these important changes. Media ecology scholars make unique contributions to these mounting discussions by looking specifically at the media themselves and the ways of being in the world they are both making possible and precluding.
These four papers each draw upon media ecology theories and scholars to make further contributions. Jenkins’ paper applies McLuhan’s concept of a hot medium to debates on the social media platform, Facebook. Hoyt’s essay supplements media ecology with the post-structuralist theories of Deleuze and Guattari to examine the media terrain upon which Parkland activists and counter-activists are carrying out their work. Marrying media ecology with Latourian theories of networks, Brunner and Gershberg seek to advance a theory of wild public networks in the US. Carr complements these more qualitative pieces by applying quantitative perspectives to examine interactions between humans and media technologies. In so doing, each author attempts to explore alternative ecologies and expand existing ideas.
Participants:
- Elizabeth Brunner, Idaho State University (Chair and Presenter)
- Heather M. Crandall, Gonzaga University
- D. Jasun Carr, Idaho State University
- Zac Gershberg, Idaho State University
- Eric S. Jenkins, University of Cincinnati
- Kate L. Hoyt, Pacific Lutheran University
For further information regarding the MEA program, please refer to the convention website at: https://www.natcom.org/nca-104th-annual-convention-communication-play.
Or, email program coordinator, Mike Plugh: mplugh01@manhattan.edu.