The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies gathers leading work by critical scholars in this burgeoning field. 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.
The book gives form to this new area of study and brings together diverse scholarly contributions to explore and give definition to the field. The Handbook highlights five critical areas of ecomedia scholarship: ecomedia theory, ecomateriality, political ecology, ecocultures, and eco-affects. Within these areas, authors navigate a range of different topics including infrastructures, supply and manufacturing chains, energy, e-waste, labor, ecofeminism, African and Indigenous ecomedia, environmental justice, environmental media governance, ecopolitical satire, and digital ecologies. The result is a holistic volume that provides an in-depth and comprehensive overview of the current state of the field, as well as future developments.
This volume will be an essential resource for students, educators, and scholars of media studies, cultural studies, film, environmental communication, political ecology, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Deep gratitude for the generous support of those institutions that provided funding to enable this volume to be available simultaneously in print and open access: University of Oregon Libraries Open Access Publishing Award, Frank J. Guarini School of Busi-ness at John Cabot University, University of Vermont Humanities Center, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Lausanne, and School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University.
Introduction Antonio López, Adrian Ivakhiv, Stephen Rust, Miriam Tola, Alenda Y. Chang, and Kiu-wai Chu PART I Ecomedia Theory 1 When Do Media Become Ecomedia? Adrian Ivakhiv and Antonio López 2 Three Ecologies: Ecomediality as Ontology Adrian Ivakhiv 3 Meaning, Matter, Ecomedia Christy Tidwell 4 Blue Media Ecologies: Swimming through the Mediascape with Sir David Attenborough Stephen Rust and Verena Wurth 5 Political and Apolitical Ecologies of Digital Media Sy Taffel 6 Centering Africa in Ecomedia Studies: Interview with Cajetan Iheka Miriam Tola, Kiu-wai Chu, and Stephen Rust 7 Ecomedia and Empire in the US–Mexico Borderlands, 1880–1912 Carlos Alonso Nugent 8 Spatial Documentary Studies, El Mar La Mar, and Elemental Media Remediated Janet Walker 9 Ecomedia Literacy: Bringing Ecomedia Studies into the Classroom Antonio López PART II Ecomateriality 10 Disaggregated Footprints: An Infrastructural Literacy Approach to the Sustainable Internet Nicole Starosielski, Hunter Vaughan , Anne Pasek, and Nicholas R. Silcox 11 Collapse Informatics and the Environmental Impact of Information and Communication Technologies Laura U. Marks 12 Electronic Environmentalism: Monitoring and Making Ecological Crises Jennifer Gabrys 13 Radiant Energy and Media Infrastructures of the South Rahul Mukherjee 14 Micro/Climates of Play: On the Thermal Contexts of Games Alenda Y. Chang 15 Relational Ecologies of the Gramophone Disc Elodie A. Roy 16 Core Dump: The Global Aesthetics and Politics of E-Waste Mehita Iqani PART III Political Ecology 17 Carbon Capitalism, Communication, and Artificial Intelligence: Placing the Climate Emergency Center Stage Benedetta Brevini and Daisy Doctor 18 Environmental Media Management: Overcoming the Responsibility Deficit Pietari Kääpä and Hunter Vaughan 19 Property Rights Control in the Data-Driven Economy: The Media Ecology of Blockchain Registries Jannice Käll 20 Common Pool Resources, Communication, and the Global Media Commons Patrick D. Murphy and E. Septime Sessou 21 #NOLNG253! Media Use in Modern Environmental Justice Movements Ellen E. Moore and Anna Bean 22 Contesting Digital Colonial Power: Indigenous Australian Sovereignty and Self-Determination in Digital Worlds Corrinne Sullivan and Jessica McLean 23 Who Makes Our Smartphones? Four Moments in Their Lifecycle Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller PART IV Ecocultures 24 Media and Ecocultural Identity Tema Milstein, Gabi Mocatta, and José Castro-Sotomayor 25 Eco-Territorial Media Practices: Defending Bodies, Territories, and Life Itself in Latin America Diana Coryat 26 Mapping for Accountability: Decolonizing Land Acknowledgment Initiatives Salma Monani and Sarah Gilsoul 27 Black Media Philosophy and Visual Ecologies: A Conversation between Armond Towns and Jeremy Kamal Armond Towns and Jeremy Kamal 28 On the Ecological Futurabilities of Experimental Film Labs Noélie Martin and Jacopo Rasmi 29 Popular Music: Folk and Folk Rock as Green Cultural Production John Parham 30 Women in the Global Pandemic Media Imagination: Mimetic Desire, Scapegoating Buddhist Hermeneutic, and Beyond Chia-ju Chang PART V Eco-Affects 31 Ecomentia, from Televised Catastrophe to Performative Assembly: Collapsonaut Attention in a House on Fire Yves Citton 32 Feeling Wild: The Mediation of Embodied Experience Alexa Weik von Mossner 33 Social Realism and Environmental Crisis: Clio Barnard’s Dark River David Ingram 34 Ecopolitical Satire in the Global North Nicole Seymour and Anthony Lioi 35 Fear and Loathing in Ecomedia: Channeling Fear through Horror Tropes in Invasive Species Outreach Katrina Maggiulli 36 Slow Media, Eco-Mindfulness, and the Lifeworld Jennifer Rauch
Antonio López is Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. He has a research focus on bridging ecojustice with media education and is a founding theorist and architect of ecomedia literacy. He created the website ecomedialiteracy.org to provide resources for students and educators. His monographs are Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education (2021), Greening Media Education: Bridging Media Literacy with Green Cultural Citizenship (2014), The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice (2012), and Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the 21st Century (2008). Adrian Ivakhiv is Professor of Environmental Thought and Culture, and Steven Rubenstein Professor of Environment and Natural Resources, at the University of Vermont. From 2024 he will be J. S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. His books include Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature (2013), Shadowing the Anthropocene: Eco-Realism for Turbulent Times (2018), and the forthcoming The New Lives of Images: Digital Ecologies and Anthropocene Imaginaries in More-than-Human Worlds. He is Research Fellow of the Cinepoetics Centre for Advanced Film Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, co-edits the Media+Environment journal, and blogs at Immanence: Ecoculture, Geophilosophy, MediaPolitics. Stephen Rust teaches Cinema Studies and Writing at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. He is co-editor of Ecocinema Theory and Practice (2013), Ecomedia: Key Issues (2016), and Ecocinema Theory and Practice 2 (2023), and is a founding advisory board member of Media+Environment and the Journal of Environmental Media. Miriam Tola is Assistant Professor at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. Her work explores the intersections between gender, race, species, and the cultural politics of the environmental crisis. Her articles have appeared in journals including South Atlantic Quarterly, Feminist Review, Environmental Humanities, and Feminist Studies. She is the co-editor of Living Lexicon for the Environmental Humanities and Ecologie della cura. Alenda Y. Chang is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her book, Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games, develops environmentally informed frameworks for understanding and designing digital games. She is a founding co-editor of the open-access journal Media+Environment and co-directs Wireframe, a studio that fosters collaborative theory and creative media practice invested in global social and environmental justice. Kiu-wai Chu is Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities and Chinese Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also Luce East Asia Fellow 2022–2023 at the National Humanities Center, USA. He is currently Executive Councillor of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE-US) and Living Lexicon co-editor of Environmental Humanities. His research focus includes ecocriticism, human–animal studies, and contemporary film and art in Chinese and global Asian contexts. His work has appeared in Transnational Ecocinema, Ecomedia: Key Issues, Chinese Environmental Humanities, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Asian Cinema, photographies, and Screen.
Reviews for The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies
""This Handbook undertakes a crucial reboot of media studies in light of the global climate crisis, reckoning with an array of urgent planetary matters. Assembling the most lucid thinkers in ecomedia studies, the book confronts the entanglement of media and ecology and unfurls vital forms of research and action."" Lisa Parks, Distinguished Professor of Media Studies, UC Santa Barbara ""Media Studies should always have been Ecomedia Studies, but it wasn’t. A generation of pioneer scholars worked to change that, and most of them have written chapters for this absolutely essential collection. This book will from now on be a key reference-point."" Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science ""This collection is extremely useful in both being aware of the earlier waves of eco-criticism while stating out clearly and in depth that the only way forward for media studies is with ecology at its core – not just as one ‘theme’ but as the very essence of how politics and planetary futures unfold. The Handbook will become essential reading."" Jussi Parikka, Aarhus University, author of Insect Media and A Geology of Media ""The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies is a timely constellation of essays that whirls into the elements, borderlands, digital worlds, energetics, and spheres of affect—addressing how media not only represent the environment but are fundamentally of the environment. This book will be a valuable reference for years to come."" Melody Jue, Associate Professor of English, UC Santa Barbara, author of Wild Blue Media
