Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Journal Article 1: Kien, G. (2013). Evolution, Apple, iPad, and education: A memeography of a monster too big to fail. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 14, 204.

Abstract: Experimenting with a new interpretive methodology, Memeography, this article constructs an account of media experiences that go toward the construction of a sophisticated understanding of one’s place as a participant within the vast, confusing, globally networked media apparatus. The author works with the premise of Dawkin’s famous theory of memes as agents of cultural reproduction, and Aunger’s theory that electronic memes exist independently within the cybersphere. The goal of Memeography is, then, to document and understand the experiences, ideas, and sense-making processes of human actors within this complex machinic life-form, from a qualitative perspective. The work turns McLuhan’s theory of media as extensions of human beings on its head, claiming instead that humans are now appendages of the apparatus. The popular movies Artificial Intelligence, Surrogates, Caprica, Battlestar Galactica, District 9, and Avatar are used to exemplify key ideas.

Journal Article 2: MacDonald, M. (2006). Empire and communication: The media wars of Marshall McLuhan. Media, Culture & Society, 28, 520.

Abstract: From his first reflections on advertising as a ‘magical institution’ in 1952 to his last writings on ‘The Brain and Media’ in 1978, Marshall McLuhan was reproached for his utopian view of media technologies as the ‘extensions of man’ and for his failure to understand the new, more formidable rhetorical powers of the electric mass media. These criticisms are not entirely unjust. At times McLuhan does seem to view media machines as vehicles of flight into a ‘cosmic harmony’ that ‘transcends space and time’. But for all his ‘delirious tribal optimism’ (Baudrillard), McLuhan also understood that the global village or ‘global theatre’ has become a theatre of war, a staging area for ‘colossal violence’ and ‘maximal conflict’. In order to shed new light on this darker, more radical vision of the mass media set forth by McLuhan, this article explores his decisive – but largely unacknowledged – contribution to radical media studies today, especially to the work of Paul Virilio, Friedrich Kittler and others concerned with the alliance of war, media and information in modern society. After some reflections on McLuhan's ‘mosaic’ approach to the media ecology and his view of media as the extensions of man, I examine three modulations of his most infamous aphorism: the medium is the message; the medium is the massage; and the medium is the mass-age.

Journal Article 3: Whitehurst, G. J. & Crone, D. A. (1994). Article commentary: Social constructivism, positivism, and facilitated communication. Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, 19, 195.

Abstract: Facilitated communication, a technique that is said to enhance the communicative abilities of individuals with severe language impairments, has engendered much controversy. Biklen and Duchan (1994) and Green and Shane (1994) present two sides of this controversy. Biklen and Duchan argue that from a constructivist's perspective, the primary issue is the underlying cultural presuppositions regarding mental retardation and science rather than the efficacy of facilitated communication. Green and Shane present research evidence challenging the efficacy of facilitated communication within a positivist's framework. We present a brief review of science as viewed through positivists' and constructivists' lenses. Using the framework of social constructivism adopted by Biklen and Duchan, we disagree with them on three points: (a) even though the process of constructing scientific knowledge is strongly affected by human social, emotional, and cognitive processes, it also involves matters of fact that cannot be ignored; (b) social constructivists' accounts of science can be accepted as descriptive without being prescriptive; (c) although we cannot prove that belief systems, including positivism and social constructivism, are true or false in the larger sense, belief systems have differential consequences for technological changes of the type that are valued by persons with severe impairments of communication.