Digital Ecology
Digital Ecology is about understanding information ecosystems constituted by information flows being processed through various media. Information has become widely digitized and turned into a resource to be exploited, produced, and transformed in a similar way as material resources. A key ecological issue concerns the preservation and increase of the use value for the public at large and the non-commercial properties of information as opposed to the exchange value.
Digital ecology aims at understanding the production, distribution, storage, accessibility, ownership, selection and use of information in technologically determined environments. Economic forces, market failures and political interventions endanger the ecosystem of the infosphere, the pluralism and variety of cultural expression offered by information and communication technologies. Digital ecology seeks to preserve and increase the cultural diversity and quality of life in the information ecosystem.