5.1.) Additional questions chapter 5

How might the metaphor of an “ecology” impact on the way you think about, understand or use the internet?

I find the description of Stadler (1997) describing the internet as web mad up of institutional servers as fixations points or structural nodes and the relating information as a cob web spanning between these information points very appropriate. I start my information search or my web travel by visiting one of these fixation points open as kind of a travel vehicle an internet browser and a search engine and start crawling the web by following the strings of information. In case I get lost I refer back to my initial starting point or structural fixation or another node. I am aware that the string of information is not fixed but might change of time like a betting table which gets updated every Saturday. When the nodes do not offer access to information of interest I stop visiting them. As such they loose their character as a structural element to me. Overall the internet feels to me like ecologic micro cosmos which changes with changing of information.

Stadler, F. (1997). A position paper (version 1.0). McLuhan Program in Culture and technology. Retrieved August 09, 2008, from http://felix.openflows.com/html/infoecco.html

How are the concepts “information” and “communication” understood within the framework of an “information ecology”?

Information is made up of several dimensions. These are according to Graham (1989) a social -, a lingusistic -, and a historic dimension defining the understanding and availability of information. It are these dimensions of information which might lead to communication in the framework of “information ecology”. Coming from the farer past by citing Watzlawik (Watzlawik, Beavin & Jackson, 1969, p.10) communication is made up by a sender receivership model with both interconnected by the message in a code deciphered by y both the sender and receiver. As such information in the information ecology as the base material of the ecology. But only the understanding of the information will lead to communication within the information ecology. As such information can be considered a semi finished material which depending on its context might become communication or not.


Graham, T. (1989). Contribution to the NORDINFO International seminar "Information and Quality" in Wormell, I. (Ed.), Information Quality. Definitions and Dimensions . Copenhagen. Royal School of Librarianship.

Watzlawik, P., Beavin, J. H., & Jackson, D. D. ( 1969). Menschliche Kommunikation - Formen, Störungen, Paradoxien. Bern, Huber.


Why don’t we talk of a “communication ecology”?

Communication does not constitute an environment as information does. Communication is just a short moment of understanding of information exchanged between numbers of individuals. An ecology in my understanding nevertheless has to offer a room or space for a population and not only a number of individuals. It does not upfront requests from its inhabitants any level of understanding. Some of the information within this information ecology might also not be understood of some individuals which is a pre requisite for communications. As such communication by its exclusiveness can not become an ecology. Furthermore the term ecology by its openness to non communicating and communicating participants can not be combined with the term communication as this would hinder its characteristic openness.