New media ecology / Course evaluation

The lecture encompassed the term "media ecology" and defined it from more of a sociological perspective, stating that it is the study of how media influences society. Marshall McLuhan, who was mentioned in the first lecture was reintroduced with his ideas of media. McLuhan believed "media are all human means of expression and conveying meaning." This concept relates back to McLuhan's idea of media becoming an extension of man.
To conceptually understand the impact of media Eric McLuhan used Tetrads. These consist of four principle questions:

1. What does a medium enhance or extend?
2. What does it make obsolete?
3. What does it retrieve from older media?
4. What does it reverse or flip when pushed to its extreme?

New Communications Technologies (the course) creates and enhances the invisible environment of media by asking questions.

Overall, I found the course very informative. I have learned a lot of things that I will take away with me. The course has given me a greater knowledge of how the internet influences a number of sociological domains. I now think about new media and privacy issues, government filters and open software in a completely different light. I will admit at first I did not know how I was going to get through two weeks of content that appeared so foreign to me, but Adam has been a great lecturer and tutor, I have really enjoyed taking his classes.