Antonio Lopez - The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us about Responsible Media Practice

Praise for The Media Ecosystem

Twenty-first-century media is a moving target. In The Media Ecosystem, Antonio Lpez helps us understand the multi-faceted (and more importantly, multi-cultural) aspects of delivering critical information in todays world. Learn from nature and Lpezs book, and carry on the good fight!

Randy Hayes, founder of Rainforest Action Network and director of Foundation Earth

The turning point in Lpezs The Media Ecosystem is the call for archetypal intelligence through his citation of parallels between ancient Hopi traditions and his own anti-colonial urban punk scene. Lpez is one of his generations original social thinkers. This book is urgent and chock-full of savage insights.

Chellis Glendinning, author of My Name Is Chellis and Im in Recovery from Western Civilization

Antonio Lpez has accomplished the Herculean task of creating a powerful manifesto for the media world! This is a thoughtful, challenging, and inspiring book, a wake-up call to all journalists, editors, writers, and publishers. The book is a plea for media men and women to help to create a sustainable, resilient, and joyful future in which people and nature can live in harmony with each other.

Satish Kumar, editor in chief of Resurgence magazine

Combining media savvy, earth wisdom, and a deeply ethical account of todays attention politics, Lpez hacks his way through the noosphere while keeping his feet on the ground. Sharp and accessible, The Media Ecosystem provides practical models for a green mediascape that will help us re-occupy the planet and the human imagination.

Erik Davis, author of Nomad Codes:Adventures in Modern Esoterica and host of the radio show Expanding Mind

Copyright 2012 by Antonio Lpez. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout written permission of the publisher. For information contact EVOLVER EDITIONS c/o North Atlantic Books.

Published by EVOLVER EDITIONS,
an imprint of North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712

Cover art by Nicola Lpez: Monument III (2004);
Intaglio on paper; 10.75 8.5
Art direction and cover design by michaelrobinsonnyc.com

The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us about Responsible Media Practice is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lpez, Antonio.
The media ecosystem : what ecology can teach us about responsible media practice / Antonio Lpez.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58394-475-2
1. Human ecologyPhilosophy. 2. Green movement. I. Title.
GF21.L66 2012
304.201dc23

2012006177

v3.1

Earth embodies a great spirit, of which we are all a part.

But alienated humans have colonized this planetary life force. Working in service of corporate abstractions, they have forsaken membership in the Earth community for the power and privilege to exploit all its resources and living subjects. Despite being children of Earth, they no longer know from where they come. Instead they enclose commonly shared resources, altering the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans in order to transform our biosphere into a buyosphere. These ecological imperialists cannibalize the living systems they depend on. Not only do they subsist by eating the world, they colonize the media in order to harvest the systems most valuable resource: human consciousness.

The corporate project of savage capitalism is a colonial war on the spirit of Earth, anima mundi, the all-encompassing life force of minerals, water, air, plants, animals, and humans. Through creativity and the capacity to learn, anima mundi represents the self-regulating power of the world that guides evolution and life. It is both our ancient past and our ancient future.

Rather than acting as a parasite on its life force, human culture should act as part of Earths immune system. Such an immune system is encompassed by the cultural commons, the uncommodified activities and mutual support that are key to evolving our species. The cultural commons includes food recipes, agricultural knowledge, spiritual traditions, rituals, healing practices, language, everyday skills, crafts, songs, games, political conventions, and philosophical knowledge. In traditional land-based cultures, the vast array of practices that enables them to survive from year to year are passed between generations, sometimes refined and built upon, but always based on the condition that culture remain all that we share.

Characteristics of the cultural commons include reciprocity, mutual support, participation, intergenerational dialogue, self-sufficiency, and receptiveness. Ultimately these practices and behaviors derive from knowledge gleaned from inhabiting the biggest commons of all: Earth. Therefore, the cultural commons is integral to sustainability and is the last line of defense against the fencing off and privatization of life on Earth. For a sustainable cultural commons to thrive, we need organic media that promotes green cultural citizenship and an Earth Democracy. Coined by Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy represents the Indian concept of vasudhaiva kutumbakam, Earth family, which encompasses the planetary community of beings that comprise our living systems. Because corporate media and gadget companies promote technological progress while excluding living systems from our awareness, organic media practitioners are charged with the responsibility of incorporating an Earth perspective into their engagement of media ecosystems.

The French theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin argued that if the biosphere is all that contains life on Earth, then a noosphere contains our collective consciousness. The semiotic version of a noosphere is the semiosphere, which is the totality of human signs and symbols. Anthropologist Wade Davis envisions an ethnosphere, which contains the totality of human cultural and linguistic diversity. The space of mediated civic engagement refers to the public sphere. The mediasphere is an all-encompassing media ecosystem that mixes these various concepts: a mediated cultural commons that facilitates planetary communications.