The authors make the following assertions:
- “The ‘when’ of new media (see DeVoss, Grabill, & Cushman, 2005) - that is, the at-the-moment infrastructural and technological set-ups and breakdowns that happen within a department or university lab setting - always impacts” situations like hiring teachers, establishing new infrastructures, purchasing and accessing technology, and so on (1).
- “Throwing money at technology without a necessary infrastructure will always bring technology specialists to this uncertain place…Investments - especially with respect to time—should be in people and in lines of communication, not just in equipment…[T]o be truly sustainable, an ecology must be flexible and always changing to accommodate the various needs of its diverse agents” (6).
- “we introduce other characters (some human, some not) who also influenced our abilities to situate ourselves and our work…Recognizing our agency in creating and maintaining a sustainable technological ecology is among our most important lessons learned” (9).
- “In our efforts to change the technological ecology of English departments and humanities programs, we should remain vigilant that we not replace one sustainable model of research with another that may prove equally rigid and limiting” (11).
Sustainability
“Sustainability comes from constantly communicating and negotiating ecological changes through a dialectical process of change” (3).
Key Terms
- Ecology: “a social system demonstrated through material, measurable effects and affectations” (1)
- Political Economy Analysis (PEA): “placing the object of study against a superstructure that mediates culture and ideas through ideological institutions, which serve as a means of preserving and reproducing class structure” (2). “PEA is about how cultural values are produced, maintained, and transformed through the production, distribution, value, consumption, and use of various cultural artifacts, including communicative acts such as advertisements, political debates, reports, memos, and conversations” (3). (The authors use PEA to analyze the changes in their department. This analysis backs their claims.)