Information ecology

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,^[1] 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 ^[2] situates information within socially-distributed cognition of cultural systems. Casagrande and Peters ^[3] use information ecology for an anthropological critique of Southwest US water policy. Stepp (1999)^[4] 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.

Law

Law schools represent another area where the phrase is gaining increasing acceptance, e.g. NYU Law School Conference Towards a Free Information Ecology ^[5] 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",^[6][7] and references to information ecology range as far afield as the Collaborative Digital Reference Service of the Library of Congress,^[8] 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.^[9]

Human Ecology

From the analysis of specific examples of the nature and physiology are determined 10 axioms and laws of information ecology, which serves as the basis for creating information strategies and tactics in social, economic, political and other spheres that affect human health and human communities.^[10]

See also

Notes

Wikibooks has more on the topic of: Information ecology

• Barlow, John Perry (1994). "The Economy of Ideas: Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net". Wired (magazine). March. 1994. 
• Capurro, Rafael (1990). "Towards an Information Ecology". Irene Wormell (Ed.): Information and Quality. London: Taylor Graham. pp. 122–139, 288. 
• Davenport, Thomas H.; Prusak, Laurence (1997). Information Ecology. Oxford University Press. p. 288. ISBN 0-19-511168-0. 
• Eryomin, Alexey (1998) Information ecology - a viewpoint// International Journal of Environmental Studies. - Vol. 54. - pp. 241–253.
• Finin, Tim; Joshi, Anupam; Kolari, Pranam; Java, Akshay; Kale, Anubav; Krandikar, Amit (2007). "The Information ecology of social media and online communities". AI Magazine. 28 (3): 77–92. 
• Malhotra, Yogesh (1999). "Knowledge Management for Organizational White Waters: An Ecological Framework". Knowledge Management. 2 (6): 18–21. 
• Nardi, Bonnie; O’Day, Vicki (1999). Information Ecology: Using Technology with Heart. Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 288. 
• Pór, G. (2000). "Nurturing Systemic Wisdom through Knowledge Ecology" (PDF). The Systems Thinker. 11 (8): 1–5. 
• Soylu, Ahmet; De Causmaecker, Patrick; Wild, Fridolin (2010). "Ubiquitous Web for Ubiquitous Computing Environments: The Role of Embedded Semantics". Journal of Mobile Multimedia. 6 (1): 26–48. 
• Seely Brown, John; Duguid, Paul (2000). The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press. 

References