Publications

The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies

2024

Edited by Antonio López, Adrian Ivakhiv, Stephen Rust, Miriam Tola, Alenda Y. Chang, and Kiu-wai Chu

Redressing the lack of environmental perspectives in the study of media, ecomedia studies asserts that media are in and about the environment, and environments are socially and materially mediated.

Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education

2021

Ecomedia Literacy offers a focused and practical guide to integrating the relationship between media and the environment—ecomedia—into media education. It enables media teachers to “green” their pedagogy by providing essential tools and approaches that can be applied in the classroom.

Greening Media Education

2014

Media are a powerful educational force that teaches about the relationship between humans and living systems while also physiologically impacting the environment. However, although long considered a tool for promoting critical thinking and cultural citizenship, media literacy does not adequately address environmental sustainability.

Drawing on original research, Antonio López demonstrates how common media literacy practices reinforce belief systems at the root of unsustainable behaviors.

The Media Ecosystem

2012

In The Media Ecosystem, Antonio Lopez draws together the seemingly disparate realms of ecology and media studies to present a fresh and provocative interpretation of the current state of the mass media—and its potential future.

Lopez explores the connections between media and the environment, arguing that just as the world’s powers have seized and exploited the physical territories and natural resources of the earth, so, too, have they colonized the “cultural commons”—the space of ideas that everyone shares. He identifies the root of the problem in the privileging of “mechanistic” thinking over ecological intelligence, which recognizes that people live in a relationship with every other living thing on the planet.

Mediacology

2008

Bridging media literacy with ecoliteracy, Mediacology seeks to redefine media education so that it harmonizes with ecological design principles. Mediacology proposes a design-for-pattern approach called “Media Permaculture,” which restructures media literacy to be in sync with new media practices connected with sustainability and the perceptual functions of the right brain hemisphere.

Seeing microplastic clouds: Using ecomedia literacy for digital technology in environmental education

Connecting environmental and digital media education with the guiding metaphor of water, this article explores ecomedia literacy, a methodology that prompts students to perform a holistic analysis and systems thinking of gadgets using four zones of inquiry: ecoculture, political ecology, ecomateriality, and lifeworld.

Eco-pedagogy and Digital Nature Connections

I have an article, “Ecomedia Literacy: Educating with Ecomedia Objects and the Ecomediasphere,” in the new issue of Eco-pedagogy and Digital Nature Connections. Thanks to special issue editor, Bronwin Patrickson, for inviting me to write it. Abstract: Ecomedia literacy cultivates the exploration of ecomedia objects– media texts (advertisements, news articles, television commercials, websites, films, etc.), …

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Special journal issue on ecomedia literacy

During this historic time of Covid-19 and ongoing climate crisis, we are proud to announce our May, 2020, Ten Year Anniversary Issue of the Journal of Sustainability Education focused on Ecomedia Literacy. Our co-published issue with the Journal of Media Literacy is dedicated to reframing not only media literacy education, but also education generally.

My media literacy encyclopedia entries are out now

After years of hard work, The International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy (Two Volume Set) is now out. Touted as, “The definitive international reference on a topic of major and enduring importance,” it features some of the top media lit scholars in the world. I have two entries, “Ecomedia Literacy” and “Communication.” Edited by Renee Hobbs …

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Greening the Mediapolis with Media Literacy

While new gadgets and software platforms are touted as necessary aspects of cultural citizenship in media literacy discourses, this view of education, empowerment and participation is usually thought of in limited, anthropocentric ways that exclude living systems and sustainability as integral aspects of communication technologies. This essay proposes that media education should enable us to closely analyze the institutions, technological forms, cultural practices and worldview that are shaped by media technology, including how they impact ecological sustainability.

Greening A Digital Media Culture Course: A Field Report

Among the various topics covered by the field of media studies, core theory courses and electives typically include a survey of media, culture and society, digital media, theory, ethics, globalization, propaganda, politics, gender and race, film, intercultural communication and celebrity culture. However, with exception of the field of environmental communication, in terms of ecological themes and sustainability there are very few examples of “green” methods that can be incorporated into media studies classrooms.

Circling the Cross: Bridging Native America, Education, and Digital Media

Sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote many years ago, “Those who rule the management of symbols, rule the world.” For many Native Americans, symbols are ciphers of power, a type of symbolic “medicine.”

Defusing the Cannon/Canon: An Organic Media Approach to Environmental Communication

Many climate change activists view mass media as a kind of “magic bullet” that can be aimed at the public mind. This article argues that such an effort mirrors a mechanistic strategy of industrial production and remains a ‘‘shallow’’ method of environmental communications. In response, it is argued that ‘‘organic media,’’ like glasnost, is based on open and local contexts.

Greening the Media Literacy Ecosystem: Situating Media Literacy for Green Cultural Citizenship

In my everyday practice I try to unite perspectives from the fields of media and sustainability education, but having a foot in both worlds has been a struggle. In the process of developing a middle way I have encountered resistance from both educational cultures.

Mediating these differences to find common ground has become my life work and is the purpose of this dissertation.

Defamiliarizing Media Literacy

Ideally, it should be possible to develop a framework that combines media literacy and ecoliteracy, but an ontological difference between the disciplines that inform these educational approaches makes the process difficult.