Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject

Abstract

We are immersed in a world mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs), both hardware (smartphones, smartwatches, home assistants) and software (algorithms, software programs, and infrastructures such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat). We are transformed by these media, whether we have invited them into our lives or not. We subsequently perceive and engage with the world through these transformations. However, media literacy for the most part does not provide clear assistance in helping us become aware of these effects. The framework of the approach described in this book uses six groupings of relations: technological, sociocultural, time, space, mind, and body, with a main emphasis on technological relations. How these relations, as well as their interrelational effects, participate in the constitution of the human subject is explored through an analysis of a museum selfie, which contributes to the development of a pragmatic instrument that can be used for media literacy.