Sustainable Synthetics & Inoculated Minds | SYNTHETIC MEDIA ECOLOGY
2/5 How will emerging content experiences affect the media ecosystem?
“Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feelings, and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival.”
- Neil Postman, 1970
In the natural world, solar energy provides ecosystems (terrestrial and aquatic) with their primary energy source. It is converted into ingestible energy (glucose) for the rest of the food chain by plants (primary producers) through the process of photosynthesis. Climate plays a vital role in regulating this process via temperature, precipitation and CO2, while soil and rocks provide process-essential nutrients and minerals.
Plants are consumed by herbivores (primary consumers) for their energy and sustenance. These, in turn, are eaten by carnivores (secondary consumers) before they become food for apex predators (tertiary consumers). What remains of plants and their consumers across the food chain upon their death is then decomposed by fungi, supporting the next cycle of energy conversion to start all over again.
While parasites like worms and lice and pathogens like bacteria and viruses can potentially complicate life in an ecosystem, external stressors such as greenhouse gases, contaminants or industrial extractors can threaten its energy source and overall ability to function while causing widespread harm to its consumers.
The media ecology field considers attention the primary energy source in the media ecosystem (roughly split across information, social media, and entertainment, with heavily blurred lines between them).
The ecosystem’s primary producers (creators - writers, directors, journalists, vloggers, musicians, fan fiction writers, etc.) convert attention into content - the essential food source for the rest of the ecosystem’s food chain. Engagement is equivalent to the process of photosynthesis here - ultimately, interactions such as views, likes, shares and comments drive creation means and creative choices. Nutrients and minerals, in the form of data (on interactions) and money (from interactions), are also critical elements in this process. Regulation provides the equivalent of climate in this analogy, given it lays out some parameters determining actions and the fate of outcomes.
Once in the ecosystem’s ether, content is consumed by audiences (primary consumers) - listeners, fans, readers, and participants. The time they spend consuming content and the data patterns their consumption generates is appetising to media platforms hosting and influencing their experiences (secondary consumers), who, in turn, are sustenance for advertisers (arguably the apex predators in this analogy).
While there is no apparent equivalent to species-death and decomposition in the media ecosystem, content that falls under the rubric of ‘problematic’ (violence, sexism, criminal behaviour, hate speech, etc.), once detected and reported, is ‘decomposed’ by moderation systems. And just like nature’s parasites, a subset of opportunistic influencers know how to game the system to ensure survival and maximum gains (fame, money, and attention).
Similar to its natural counterpart, the media ecosystem also finds its function under threat from stressors. These include click- and troll farms, censorship and addiction-forming user experiences. However, in contrast to its natural counterpart, its stressors are a consequence of its own machinery.
When synthetic matter enters a natural ecosystem, its composition and volume typically determines its impact. The existing health of the ecosystem it enters will also determine the extent of its resilience or vulnerability to it. Unless the composition of synthetic matter is intentionally designed to have zero or beneficial impact (e.g. biodegradables), most fall under the rubric of stressors, assuming the form of refined gases, chemicals, and plastics.
The most toxic or hazardous synthetics can cause natural disasters through accidents or carelessness - typically causing immediate, visible, and acute damage. Persistent organic pollutants (aka POPs), such as microplastics or pesticides, typically have a more cumulative impact over time - invisible in their progress, causing chronic damage in their wake.
In the previous post, we established that positive intentions drive synthetic media experiences seeking to positively contribute to the ecosystem (New Next, Neural Shifters, limited iterations of AI-Enhanced and Dupes). However, when the intention driving an application and its output is misaligned with maintaining ecosystem balance - and at a pace of change that leaves little time for impact mitigation - it can result in less favourable effects, akin to how they play out in natural ecosystems.
As a starting point for determining generative AI's potential impact on the media ecosystem, we overlay these three types of matter on our synthetic content typologies.
Akin to biodegradables, what does a neutral or beneficial contribution from Interplay and Neural Shifters look like? Similarly to a POP, will AI-Enhanced, Dupes, and McContent - driven by the intent to exploit - cause slow, invisible damage to the mechanics of the ecosystem and its consumers over time? And like hazardous toxins, will Nerve Agents irreparably damage the ecosystem, potentially affecting other systems to which it is connected (e.g. economy, markets, and government)?
To establish the extent and consequences of all forms of impact, exploring their drivers - regulatory activities, business practices, sociocultural currents, and consumer habits - will help us do so in the next post.
NEXT: What impact will synthetic media have on the ecosystem and its consumers?
Thank you Lucia, very interesting and a completely new perspective on the problem. Eagerly awaiting the next post