This article introduces media ecology and reflects on its potential usefulness for gaining an understanding of the contemporary mutations of the media system. The first section maps the origins of the field, specifically the development of the ecological metaphor. The second section explores the metaphor by including the concepts of evolution, interface, and hybridization in the media ecology discourse. The concept of evolution creates a theoretical framework for studying the history of media and suggests new concepts and questions about media extinction, survival, and coevolution. The concept of interface focuses on the media, subject, and social interactions. Finally, the analysis of media hybridizations is basic for understanding the appearance of new media that combine different devices, languages, and functions.

Talking about theories, discourses and communicationLanguage is a basic element for the construction and survival of organizations (Winograd and Flores, 1987;Flores, 1997) and scientific institutions (Shotter, 1993). Scientific conversations emerge in an organizational environment made up of universities, research centers, journals, conferences and congresses. In these spaces, researchers exchange information, discuss ideas, litigate, arrive at agreements and take on obligations -for example to respect a scientific methodology and a series of discursive rules -inside a network of linguistic speech acts (Austin, 1999). In other words, researchers activate and hold conversations.The concept of scientific conversations doesn't only refer to ideas, concepts, or theories that are based on the scientific method. These discourses must also be produced by recognized institutions (a church is a good place for the enunciation of religious discourses, but not for scientific ones) for specific receivers (scholars, scientists, etc.) who have some mastery of the main concepts and discursive rules of scientific discourse. To understand the dynamics of a scientific domain -for example the theoretical production of digital communication -it is necessary to map its discursive territory, identify the interlocutors that participate in the conversations and reconstruct their exchanges.The spread of broadcasting in the second decade of the 20 th century was followed by the development of a theoretical corpus about 'new media' such as radio and, thirty years later, television. This theoretical corpus integrated itself into a research tradition -the study of journalism, public opinion and press -and consolidated a new epistemological territory: Theories of Mass But conversations that have yet to take place are also important for constituting the field.Craig (1999) proposed an agenda for future work in communication studies that included:Exploring the field to discover key issues and map the complex topography of the traditions; communication. This is why in this article I prefer to employ, although provisionally and in an operative way, the concept of 'digital communication'. New media and old theories Mass Communication ConversationsThe territory of mass communication research is a complex network of theoretical paradigms, methodologies, techniques and specific dictionaries. From agenda-setting to the functional approach, from the spiral of silence to uses and gratification or cultural imperialism, it is almost impossible to concentrate all this theoretical production into one consistent scientific discourse.Therefore, TMC constitute a particular conversational space where different scientific practices and discourses confront each other.Theories of communication have been classified according to their disciplinary origin (sociology, psychology, etc.), explanation (cognitive, system-theoretic, etc.), level of organization (group, mass, etc.), epistemological premises (empirical, critical, etc.) and underlying conceptions of communic...

No abstract

Fernanda Pires has a postdoctoral Juan de la Cierva fellowship at the MEDIUM research group in the Department of Communication of Universitat Pompeu Fabra-Barcelona. She holds a PhD in Information and Knowledge Society from the Open University of Catalonia. Her main research interests include co-viewing, UGC, social media, media literacy, social practices and popular culture.

The objective of this article is to propose a first exploratory analysis of the Spanish YouTubers’ main productions and practices. Following the description of the emergence of YouTube in the context of media ecology, the article presents a general overview of the top 10 Spanish YouTubers’ production based on quantitative data. The study continues with a semiotic/discursive analysis of their audio-visual production’s main distinctive traits. As traditional television is imitating nowadays these new media expressions, this article also addresses the aesthetics and grammar of Yutubers, a TV program produced by Comedy Central that simulates the Spanish YouTubers channels’ aesthetics and language. The analysis concludes with a discussion on the study’s findings and a series of questions about these new media subjects.