Old New Media

Highlighting that communication methods alter human thought and societal structures, this book exemplifies superb scholarship of value well beyond the media ecology field. Warning that myopic responses of 'technological horror' and 'technological sublime' obscure new media's impact, Grosswiler deconstructs assumptions, assesses the historical narrative about media, explores East-West predispositions, and expli-cates numerous thinkers' work. With matchless skill, he crystallizes core and shifting thought - like that of James W. Carey and Jacques Ellul. Astonishing breadth and depth mark these twenty-three chapters, including book-enders that foreground insights about Socrates' criticism of writing. (Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Professor Emerita, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota Author of Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America)
Grosswiler is a brilliant and daring scholar whose work challenges conventional wisdom and significantly advances our understanding of media and culture. His writing and thinking are crystal-clear. In short and highly readable chapters, Old New Media grapples with a wide range of topics that challenge accepted perspectives in playful, provocative, and persuasive ways. His work is historically grounded and philosophically rich. Grosswiler clearly delights in the demanding task of advancing the 'great conversation' by creating new paradigms of understanding or vastly modifying pre-existing models. (Joshua Meyrowitz, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of New Hamp-shire, Author of No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior)
Old New Media contributes to reassessing the enduring significance of McLuhan's work within the tradition of media ecology, to mapping the common ground between media ecology and social ecology, and to the 'poetics' of what we in Canada would call transformation theory - the Innis/McLuhan et al claim that new media transform social and psychic reality. In Canada, which initiated the media ecology tradition with the debates in the 1950s at the University of Toronto, Grosswiler is looked upon as a serious player - an insightful, measured and original voice in critical and cultural debates regarding the continued relevance of this tradition. (David Mitchell, Professor and Head Department of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary, co-editor of Communication Theory Today)
Old New Media opens dialogues between medias ecology and other traditions, such as critical/cultural studies, public sphere studies, and Eastern thought. The book also generates long overdue critiques from within media ecology - especially regarding the 'alphabet effect' in relation to Chinese culture and language. Critical case studies, particularly on plagiarism and flag-burning, provide students with focused and grounded ways of understanding ideas in more theoretical chapters. The flag-burning chapter is likely to get widespread classroom use and scholarly attention, and the use of Q-methodology is a wonderful insight that will likely pave the way for future research. (Corey Anton, Professor, School of Communications, Grand Valley State University, Author of Communication Uncovered: General Seman-tics and Media Ecology)
Grosswiler thinks in the largest historical terms about epochal change in media systems, but connects them as well to events that occur in the temporalities that conventional historians think in - the development of the legal protection of freedom of the press, for instance. He is concerned with issues of freedom of expression within the past twenty years, as the shift from