In the context of an evolving information society, the term information
ecology marks a connection between ecological ideas
with the dynamics and properties of the increasingly dense, complex and
important digital informational environment and has been gaining progressively
wider acceptance in a growing number of disciplines. "Information
ecology" often is used as metaphor, viewing the informational space as an ecosystem.
Information ecology is a science which studies the laws
governing the influence of information summary on the formation and functioning
of bio‐systems, including that of individuals, human communities and humanity
in general and on the health and psychological, physical and social well‐being
of the human being; and which undertakes to develop methodologies to improve
the information environment (Eryomin
1998).
Information ecology also makes a connection to the concept
of collective intelligence and Knowledge
ecology (Pór
2000
Language of ecology
Information ecology draws on the language of ecology - habitat, species, evolution, ecosystem, niche,
growth, equilibrium, etc. - to describe and analyze information systems from a perspective that
considers the distribution and abundance of organisms, their
relationships with each other, and how they influence and are influenced by
their environment. The virtual lack of
boundaries between information systems and the impact of information technology
on economic, social and environmental activities frequently calls on an information ecologist
to consider local information ecosystems in the context of larger systems, and
of the evolution of global information ecosystems. See also list of ecology topics.
Networked information economy
In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production
Transforms Markets and Freedom, a book published in 2006 and available
under a Creative Commons license on its own wikispace, Yochai
Benkler provides an analytic framework for the emergence of the networked information economy that
draws deeply on the language and perspectives of information ecology together
with observations and analyses of high-visibility examples of successful peer
production processes, citing Wikipedia as a prime example.
Bonnie Nardi and
Vicki O'Day in their book "Information Ecologies: Using Technology
with Heart," (Nardi
& O’Day 1999) apply the ecology metaphor to local environments, such as
libraries and schools, in preference to the more common metaphors for
technology as tool, text, or system.
In different domains / disciplines
Anthropology
Nardi and O’Day’s book represents the first specific
treatment of information ecology by anthropologists. H.E. Kuchka situates information within
socially-distributed cognition of cultural systems. Casagrande and Peters use information ecology for an anthropological
critique of Southwest US water policy. Stepp (1999) published a prospectus for
the anthropological study of information ecology.
Knowledge management
Information ecology was used as book title by Thomas H.
Davenport and Laurence Prusak (Davenport
& Prusak 1997), with a focus on the organization dimensions of
information ecology. There was also an academic research project at DSTC called Information
ecology, concerned with distributed information systems and online
communities.
Human-computer interaction
Practitioners in human-computer interaction have been using
a variant of information ecology, known as the 'ecological cognition framework'
for some time. Research have found it to be useful for understanding active
participation in online communities and what instigates the user
to desire to do so
Law
Law schools represent another area where the phrase is
gaining increasing acceptance, e.g. NYU Law School Conference Towards a Free
Information Ecology and a lecture series
on Information ecology at Duke University Law School's Center for the Study of the
Public Domain.
Library science
The field of library
science has seen significant adoption of the term and librarians have been
described by Nardi and O'Day as a
"keystone species in information ecology", and references to
information ecology range as far afield as the Collaborative Digital Reference
Service of the Library of Congress, to children's library database
administrator in Russia.
Biology
There has also been increasing use of "information
ecology" as a concept among ecologists involved in digital mapping of
botanical resources, including research by Zhang Xinshi at the Institute of
Botany of the China Academy of Science; also see a presentation to the
Information Ecology SIG at Yale University's Forestry School.
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