‘We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us’

I explore the idea of media as environments within which cultures can grow.

‘interdependent parts of knowledge into harmonious relationships through strategies such as relating part and whole or the particular and the general’

t is easy to become so distracted by the constant presence of technology in our lives that we do not recognize how many of our actions are being mediated in some way by these technologies.

Posthumanism stresses that the subject is constituted through its relations,

‘There is no microperception (sensory-bodily) without its location within a field of macroperception and no macroperception without its microperceptual foci’ (29). Both the microperceptual and macroperceptual views are entangled and necessary in order to comprehend overall the effects of media and to fully become media literate.

They focus on concepts such as de-centering the human and making sure marginalized groups are included in any definition of ‘human’.

The approach of critical media literacy has increased the scope of media literacy by adding the critical study of how messages contain underlying stereotypes, marginalization, and exploitation.

‘Adolescents who spent more time on screen activities were significantly more likely to have high depressive symptoms or have at least one suicide-related outcome, and those who spent more time on nonscreen activities were less likely’ (9). Educating people on possible dangers and negative effects of media falls within this protectionist approach.

‘ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts’

how we use, and are potentially used by, media

chnologies, others are questioning, pointing out the drawbacks and costs of such changes. The Center for Humane Technology warns, ‘The companies that created social media and mobile tech have benefited our lives enormously. But even with the best intentions, they are under intense pressure to compete for attention, creating invisible harms for society’ (Center for Humane Technology, n.d.). Th

In this saturated media environment, the media tend to disappear into the background of our awareness.3 They become part of the environment in which we live. This immersion, as Figure 1.1 reflects, is especially visible with the number of smartphones in use and how often people are engaged with them.

n the European Union (EU), while television is still the most commonly used medium—84% watch it every day or almost every day and 94% watch it at least once per week—the number of people who use the internet is catching up, with 65% of EU citizens using it daily or almost daily and 77% using it at least once per week

It is fairly common for people in the developed Western world to live in a media-saturated environment. However, far from being new, this trend began in earnest with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press,1

hile this helped me to understand the mediating role of technologies, it also raised unanswered questions as to exactly how the subject was being transformed in its relation with technology

The posthumanist approach understands the human subject as constantly becoming through the myriad of constituting relations in their life. While it is not possible to completely understand the complexity of all interrelations that constitute us, the more we can become aware of how we relate with the world through these transformed aspects of our selves, the greater chance we will have for reclaiming some of our agency, which arguably is the main goal of media literacy.