Aesthetic Research On Media Ecology In North America

When the media and technology merged into the base of existence,Aesthetic will have encountered the media and technical problems.Similarly,the contemporary communication research needs not only to pay attention to the new phenomenon,but also to the profound insight for human survival.It,thus,needs to get support from philosophy and aesthetics.Selecting such a research topic as Media Ecology is not only because it discusses the media and technical problems,but also it contains rich aesthetic thoughts.So such a research topic satisfies the need of the development of communication and aesthetics.As far as the communication is concerned,interpretation of the communication from the perspective of aesthetic can enrich aesthetic connotation of Media Ecology,increase the depth of communication theory.While in terms of aesthetics,aesthetic interpretation of media ecology can provide new theoretical support for the aesthetics research and present a new research angle in the aesthetic study.This study mainly discusses three aspects of Media Ecology:Media-itself Aesthetics,Sense-media Aesthetics and Cross-media Aesthetics.And it consists of introduction,four chapters and conclusion.The introduction section clarifies the value of media ecology esthetics research,and put forward the research topic and theoretical framework.Chapter one introduces the overall aesthetics of media ecology,including research object,research content and research goals.Chapter two investigates the Media-itself Aesthetics,pointing out its connotation,and then discusses Harold Innis Aesthetics,which will be subdivided into four parts.First of all,it shows the thematic thoughts of Harold Innis aesthetics.Second,it discusses aesthetic interest of four medium stages.Then the study explored the aesthetic preference of time and space of the medium.Finally,it examines the balance of media aesthetics.Chapter three discussed Sense-media Aesthetics and McLuhan Media Aesthetics,which will be subdivided into four sections.First,it reviews the literature on McLuhan,and then discusses the aesthetic meaning of McLuhan's famous words(namely,"medium is the message").Next,it revealed four connotation of Marshall McLuhan's "Global village".Finally it discusses the aesthetics connotation of hot and cold media.Chapter four focuses on Neil Postman as a representative of Cross-media Aesthetics.First,it defines the Cross-media Aesthetics and Postman as a model.It is divided into three parts.First,it discusses Neil Postman's status in the school of media ecology,making a conclusion of Postman's media aesthetics.Then it reveals Postman's aesthetic in his TV criticism.Finally we discuss the postmodern technological problems in "the disappearance of childhood".The last part is epilogue,summarizing Media-itself Aesthetics,Sense-media Aesthetics and Cross-media Aesthetics respectively,and disclosing the internal unity of them.Based on its logical development,this paper firstly clarifies the necessity and feasibility of media ecology aesthetics research.Secondly it discusses Media-itself Aesthetics,Sense-media Aesthetics and Cross-media Aesthetics.At last,the study makes a summary of the entire media ecology aesthetics.To realize its research purpose,this paper adopts several research methodologies.First,we lay stress on both theoretical exploration and application of theory.On the one hand,it makes use of the concept of carding and logical deduction on aesthetic discussion;On the other hand,the discussion is combined with the present media problem.Second,we employ inductive method and comparative method at the same time.On the one hand,the study of the selected media theorists adopts induction,paying attention to its entirety.On the other hand,it foregrounds the comparative study of Media-itself Aesthetics,Sense-media Aesthetics and Cross-media Aesthetics and clarify their respective characteristics in comparison.At last,it illustrates the selected text from the perspective of philosophy,aesthetics,literature,psychology,communication and culture multidisciplinary.The main conclusion of this paper is(1)Media-itself Aesthetics tends to reveal the aesthetic value of media in its development and change.It embodied in four spread stage,medium of media bias and balance of aesthetic discussion of Innis;(2)Sense-media Aesthetics revealed the aesthetic consequences which imposes an impact on human perception.It embodied in "medium is the message","Global village",and hot and cold media of McLuhan;(3)Cross-media Aesthetics tends to reveal the aesthetic content of the media in the perspective of the whole culture,represented by the Postman media aesthetics.Postman discussed metaphor and cognition.This paper discovered the joint relationship among medium cognition,metaphor and aesthetic.More importantly,this study uncovers Postman's TV aesthetic criticism from his television criticism.At the same time it also displays the postmodern technical problems in childhood problems of Postman;(4)As a whole,Media-itself Aesthetics,Sense-media Aesthetics and Cross-media Aesthetics has internal unity.In the communication,they are defined in such a way because they all focus on media and technology.From the aesthetic way of thinking,we also found the common basis of Media-itself Aesthetics,Sense-media Aesthetics and Cross-media Aesthetics;focusing on the aesthetic problem about media(technology)and man(cultural).Media-itself Aesthetics stresses aesthetic problems of media(technology)itself;Sense-media Aesthetics concentrates on media(technology)'s aesthetic problems at the human(cultural)level;Cross-media Aesthetics focuses on media(technology)'s aesthetic problem which is facing cultural(human).They present a clear theoretical unity.Different from the aesthetic orientation of the empirical school and critical school,Media Ecology holds the internal correlation of media(technology),people(culture)and the aesthetic activities,which presents a strong aesthetic taste.This is also a unique value that this paper contributed to the Media Ecology aesthetics research.