Media ecology is the study of media, technology, and communication and how they affect human environments. Also it looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value. The word “ecology” implies the study of  environments, their structure, content, and impact on people. Media Ecology can argue that the media acts as extensions of the human senses in each era and communication technology is the primary cause of social change. This relates to nature as a symbolic relationship to Media Ecology, because of the large structural changes in both. Which is evident in the “Water Cycle” because if one of the components don’t work the whole cycle won’t.

This image below is an example of my own system which can relate to media. The ecosystem portrays the idea that each component helps and supports each other to make the process run as easy as possible while making audience/consumers happy. We tried to create the idea of goods being imported from overseas and coming to land to be sold in a shop and then bought by a consumer. Each process is valuable, from making the goods high quality and brought to land safely without getting damaged to then having the consumer satisfied. This shows that each process is relying on each other similar to “The Circle of Life”.

The Media Ecosystem contains the components:

• Audience – prosumers, communication technology, uses and gratification
• Creators- Musicians, Actors, Youtubers, Designers, Film-makers, stars and celebrities
• Institutions – Media companies (public/commercial)
• Money – profit, expense, revenue
• Distribution – platforms that deliver media to an audience, e.g. Wifi, Cinemas, Satellite
• Social Media – sharing, communities
• Government – Rules and Regulations, the law
• Technology – consuming and communicating, data

I showed the significance of my allocated component through the mind map below. We explained how our component “distribution” is dependent and being depended on by all the others. Then we showed the links between them by connecting each component on this mind map :

This is the classes ideas of the different examples or medias and their concepts and how they all connect to each other. Also portrays the study of media, technology, and communication and how they effect human environments.

As I’ve seen from investigating the different components in media, when making my own magazine I will need to think about the process and how each component will link together to make my product work and up to high quality. For example, the use of social media because not only does it help discover what the audience (and finding my specific target audience) wants to see but also helps promote the product. However also linking to the laws and rules I will need to follow which determines the cost and quality.