López, Antonio
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Institutional profile
Antonio Lopez, PhD, is a curriculum designer, educator, trainer, and theorist with a research focus on bridging ecojustice and media literacy. He is a founding theorist and architect of ecomedia literacy and creator of the ecomedialiteracy.org website, which curates education resources. He has written numerous academic articles, essays, and four monographs: Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education; Greening Media Education: Bridging Media Literacy with Green Cultural Citizenship; The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice; and Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the 21st Century. He is lead editor of the Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies. Currently he is Professor of Communication and Media Studies. Resources and writing are available at: https://antonio-lopez.com/
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Publication Ecomedia Literacy: Educating with Ecomedia Objects and the Ecomediasphere(2020) López, AntonioEcomedia literacy cultivates the exploration of ecomedia objects-- media texts (advertisements, news articles, television commercials, websites, films, etc.), platforms (streaming services, social networks, media organizations), gadgets (smart phones, tablets, computers, etc.), or hyperobjects (anamorphous disbursed phenomena that behaves like a system, such as the internet, fake news, or media industry). In this paper, I introduce an integrative method of analysis I devised called the “ecomediasphere.” The ecomediasphere prompts learners to explore the ecomedia object’s use and meaning from four different perspectives: lifeworld, culture, political economy, and materiality. Conceptually and theoretically, these four perspectives correspond with various lenses that inform digital media literacy and environmental literacy.Publication Deconstructing Chipotle: Media as Environmental Education(2016) López, AntonioChipotle, a popular fast food restaurant that promotes a sustainability message (“Cultivate a Better World,” “Food with Integrity”), produced two viral animated media campaigns, “Back to the Start” (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2011, August 25) and “The Scarecrow” (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2013, September 11). According to the New York Times, “Back to the Start” was rated by Zeta Interactive as one of the Top 10 videos in Internet buzz in 2011. The award-winning “The Scarecrow” also achieved critical praise. Both spots use clever animation and popular culture references to promote a sustainability message, allowing Chipotle to position itself as an ethical food alternative in relation to more conventional fast food venues. Chipotle uses its media campaigns to educate consumers about opposing food production paradigms (local and familyfarming versus factory farming). However, some critics have argued that the campaign is misleading and that Chipotle’s sustainability practices are contradictory and ambiguous; its marketing strategy could be considered to be an example of “greenwashing,” which is the practice of marketing unsustainable products as being positive for the environment. Drawing on media analysis techniques and ecocriticism, students critically assess in a written assignment (six to eight-page paper) the messaging Chipotle uses to promote its ethical and environmental food brand to explore environmental ideologies and ecological discourses. This assignment builds on five lessons: 1) media as environmental education; 2) environmental ideologies; 3) ecocriticism and environmental discourses; 4) food systems and marketing; and 5) greenwashing. The written assignment and lesson plan prompts students to evaluate Chipotle’s environmental claims, and to determine if its media campaigns can be reconciled with its actual business practices. In doing so students gain insights into how media act as a kind of environmental education (or “miseducation,” as the case may be).Publication Integrating Information Literacy in a Communication Writing Course(Association of College and Research Libraries, 2020) López, Antonio; Piotto, Livia; Macias-Gutiérrez, ElizabethPublication Ecomedia Literacy & SDGs: A Handbook for Higher Ed(2024) López, AntonioThis handbook provides a guide for integrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into liberal arts and sciences curricula through the framework of ecomedia literacy. Ecomedia literacy investigates the relationship between media, information and communication technology (ICT), and environmental sustainability, considering both the ecological impacts of media systems and the role of media in shaping environmental awareness and actions. The handbook offers key concepts, learning objectives, interdisciplinary applications, and practical activities to help educators incorporate ecomedia literacy and the SDGs across various disciplines in higher education.Publication Ecomedia Literacy Bringing Ecomedia Studies into the Classroom(Routledge, 2023) López, AntonioThe purpose of this chapter is to introduce the methodology of ecomedia literacy and demonstrate how ecomedia studies can be incorporated into any educational setting. Ecomedia literacy is defined as the ability to evaluate and critically engage how everyday media practice enables us to live regeneratively within Earth’s ecological parameters for the present and future. The primary analytical heuristic for this approach is the “ecomediasphere,” which analyzes “ecomedia objects” (gadgets, texts, platforms, etc.) from four different perspectives: ecoculture, political ecology, ecomaterialism, and lifeworld. An ecomedia object is something that has agreed upon properties, but its meaning and use change according to environmental context.Publication Greening A Digital Media Culture Course: A Field Report(2013) López, AntonioAs a professor of undergraduate media studies, I have attempted to bridge media education and ecoliteracy by developing an experimental media education approach called Ecomedia Literacy. The framework attempts to balance the strengths of media studies with the concerns of education for sustainability. This paper documents a specific case study in which I introduced sustainability themes into an undergraduate digital technology and culture course by using the Ecomedia Literacy framework.Publication Ecomedia: The metaphor that makes a difference(2020) López, AntonioMedia is an ambiguous metaphor that changes meaning depending on how it’s used by educators. Typically media are only characterized by how they represent reality and communicate ideas. Consequently, the metaphor assumes a taken-for-granted meaning that media are immaterial with no environmental impact. Instead, the term ecomedia signals media’s inherent environmentality. This essay introduces our special issue on ecomedia literacy by exploring how the ecomedia metaphor affords a deeper awareness of media’s environmental footprint.Publication Fake Climate News: How Denying Climate Change is the Ultimate in Fake News(2020) López, Antonio; Share, JeffPublication Bella Gaia and the Pedagogical Power of the Overview Effect: An Interview with Kenji Williams(2020) López, AntonioBella Gaia (Beautiful Earth) is a performance that combines a world-music inspired soundtrack with projected graphics, animations and video to educate about climate change. A hybrid of art and science, the nonlinear performance is an example of an emerging form of ecomedia in which remote sensing media are used to transform audiences to experience Earth as an organic, living organism. Bella Gaia’s creative director and creator, Kenji Williams, discusses this new form of educational experience. The violinist, composer and filmmaker incorporates a neuro-science driven methodology to create “immersive live theater, mixed reality, and interactive data visualization.”Publication Algorithms and Climate: An Ecomedia Literacy Perspective(2022) López, Antonio; Frenkel, OliviaDrawing on examples of Bitcoin and climate disinformation, this article demonstrates why Big Tech algorithms have a significant environmental impact and how media literacy educators can respond. Big Tech algorithms reinforce the economic models of surveillance and carbon capitalism, which are dependent on two forms of extractivism: data harvesting and resource extraction. To encourage a holistic environmental analysis of algorithms, ecomedia literacy’s four zone approach enables an investigation from the perspectives of ecoculture, political ecology, ecomateriality, and lifeworld. For media literacy educators, the challenge is to develop curricula and methods that address these different standpoints, which can include critical media literacy, design justice, civic media literacies, news and misinformation literacies, and ethical algorithm audits.