{"id":11119,"date":"2020-10-16T08:24:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T13:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=11119"},"modified":"2020-10-16T08:25:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T13:25:08","slug":"streaming-medias-environmental-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/10\/16\/streaming-medias-environmental-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Streaming media’s environmental impact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cross-posted with the EcoCultureLab blog.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media+Environment<\/a> <\/em>has just published another article in its \u201cStates of Media and Environment<\/a>\u201d series, and this one should be of broad interest to environmental educators, media scholars, and environmentally concerned media users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStreaming Media\u2019s Environmental Impact<\/a>\u201d draws attention to an unpopular but inescapable issue: the adverse environmental effects of streaming media. Four of the brief interventions in this multi-part article focus on streaming media\u2019s carbon footprint, estimated by some to be 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (The Shift Project 2019). This startling figure is rising at a calamitous rate as more people around the world stream more media at higher bandwidth\u2014now exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Another factor in streaming media\u2019s environmental impact is even less welcome: the deleterious effects of higher levels of electromagnetic frequencies that media corporations\u2019 turn to fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology would exacerbate. These effects are well documented yet almost universally ignored. Despite all these findings, the notion abides that digital media are immaterial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Laura U. Marks introduces the research challenges involved in calculating the carbon footprint of streaming media and suggests actions consumers and media makers can take to mitigate this environmental threat. Joseph Clark discusses the implications of digitizing huge amounts of archival film and connects material histories of news film production, distribution, and preservation or disposal to contemporary issues of digital storage, streaming, and energy use, using the newsreel archive as a case study. Jason Livingston\u2019s contribution expands on his droll and disturbing video lecture, which presents a speculative app for mobile phones that tracks streaming, correlates it to energy use and CO2 emissions, and suggests methods to mitigate usage. Denise Oleksijczuk introduces scientific research on the health and environmental impacts of high levels of electromagnetic frequencies and suggests ways, including creative practice, to break through the resistance to these findings among telecommunications companies, governments, and the public. Lucas Hilderbrand focuses on best practices in teaching: how to educate our students about these impacts, and how teachers can resist increasing pressures to use streaming-based pedagogical media. Many communities around the world already rely on low-tech media, of necessity, and are often extremely innovative in their use (Marks 2017). However, network and media corporations are aggressively marketing devices and streaming platforms in both \u201cdeveloped\u201d and \u201cdeveloping\u201d regions (Cisco 2020). Many of the latter regions depend on fossil fuels and cannot afford to prioritize renewable energy and efficient systems. Thus streaming media\u2019s carbon footprint is not just a First World problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many thanks to the co-authors, peer reviewers, and to our editorial and production teams at the Carsey-Wolf Center and the University of California Press!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the article here: https:\/\/mediaenviron.org\/article\/17242-streaming-media-s-environmental-impact<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And others in the series here: https:\/\/mediaenviron.org\/section\/1582<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted with the EcoCultureLab blog. Media+Environment has just published another article in its \u201cStates of Media and Environment\u201d series, and this one should be of broad interest to environmental educators, media scholars, and environmentally concerned media users. \u201cStreaming Media\u2019s Environmental Impact\u201d draws attention to an unpopular but inescapable issue: the adverse environmental effects of streaming media. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[196,689701],"tags":[628608,628610,628432,628609,628605,628606,628607,4478,520682,628611,243430],"class_list":["post-11119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecoculture","category-media_ecology","tag-carbon-footprint","tag-data-centers","tag-digital-media","tag-ecological-footprint","tag-environmental-impact","tag-industrial-ecology","tag-laura-marks","tag-media-ecology","tag-mediaenvironment","tag-pedagogical-media","tag-streaming-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2Tl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11718,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/04\/09\/mediaenvironment-at-fleff-tonight\/","url_meta":{"origin":11119,"position":0},"title":"Media+Environment at FLEFF tonight","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 9, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy to share that I'll be participating in a panel\/conversation at the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF), in a celebration of open-access journal Media+Environment, today from 5:00 to 6:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time (21:00-22:30 GMT). FLEFF, which is now in its 24th year, is one of the signature environmental\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/04\/screen-shot-2021-02-28-at-1.31.59-pm.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/04\/screen-shot-2021-02-28-at-1.31.59-pm.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/04\/screen-shot-2021-02-28-at-1.31.59-pm.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/04\/screen-shot-2021-02-28-at-1.31.59-pm.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/04\/screen-shot-2021-02-28-at-1.31.59-pm.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1090,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/18\/case-for-online-publishing\/","url_meta":{"origin":11119,"position":1},"title":"case for online publishing","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Mount Holyoke College political science professor Douglas Amy makes a good case for publishing online in this piece in today's Inside Higher Ed. Amy is the author of three previous books, The Politics of Environmental Mediation (Columbia University Press, 1987), Behind the Ballot Box (Greenwood, 2000), and Real Choices\/New Voices\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6541,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/03\/07\/environmental-media-call-for-curators\/","url_meta":{"origin":11119,"position":2},"title":"Environmental media: call for curators","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In Media Res is calling for guest curators on the theme of the representation of environmental issues in the media. The deadline (alas) is March 11. See the call here. 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This year's SCMS featured what to my mind was by far the largest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13606,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2024\/04\/17\/ecomaterialist-theory-roundtable\/","url_meta":{"origin":11119,"position":4},"title":"Ecomaterialist theory roundtable","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm part of a roundtable discussion on ecomaterialist theory that's just been published by the New Review of Film and Television Studies. It's with film and media studies scholars Se\u00e1n Cubitt (of Melbourne University),\u00a0Elena Past (Wayne State University), and\u00a0Hunter Vaughan\u00a0(University of Cambridge), and curated by Ludo de Roo\u00a0(Macquarie University). Among\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14080,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/04\/17\/cfp-the-life-cycle-of-moving-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":11119,"position":5},"title":"CFP: The Life-Cycle of Moving Images","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The deadline is coming soon; please write to me if you need more time. Call for Chapter Proposals: The Life-Cycle of Moving Images: Ecological Entanglements from Conception to Consumption and Beyond We invite contributions for a forthcoming edited volume entitled The Life-Cycle of Moving Images: Ecological Entanglements from Conception to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11120,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11119\/revisions\/11120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}