Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject

Media literacy is often focused on evaluating the message rather than reflecting on the medium. Bringing together postphenomenology, media ecology, posthumanism, and complexity theory, Richard Lewis’s book offers a method for such a reflection and shows how our everyday media environments constitute us as (post)human subjects: one that is becoming and constitutes through relations – also with our media technologies. An original interdisciplinary effort – including for example the term 'intrasubjective mediation' – and a must-read book for everyone interested in how we become with and through technologies.

In sum, Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject is a complex new approach to media literacy that is well-supported by conceptual framing and includes excellent support from various domains of the literature. There are rich ideas throughout, and this piece definitely adds nuance to an already challenging series of questions surrounding media, and media literacy. The contemporary media technology landscape will likely continue to evolve at a breakneck pace, and hopefully Lewis’ work can help us all (scholars, educators, practitioners, and end users) think a bit more deliberately about if and how we engage with the next new thing on the horizon.