internet, ecology, and metaphor

An expression which has become so normal that nobody (including me) thinks twice about using it is “information ecosystem.” This post is my second thought.

“Information ecosystem,” as I’m understanding it, refers to the system of interrelated actors who are talking and transacting online. In the same way “ecosystem” encompasses everything from bobcats to bluebells, “information ecosystem” involves everyone from NPR to random anons in their basement. What happens in one part of the complex system echoes across the other parts. The metaphor does not imply hierarchy, but does imply interdependence. It also takes a broader view of the life of “information” — including the economic, social, and technological dynamics which shape it, just as any ecologist looks at rainfall, sunlight, and geology to understand the ways organisms fit into their niches.

I love ecosystem diagrams on Google images

However, “information ecosystem” feels (in practice) like a way to do a structural analysis without sounding like a leftist. It feels like a way to accomplish what a Marxian analysis accomplishes while minimizing the role of money and conflict; or to do what a Foucauldian archaeology does while treating discourse as something transparent and fungible, like the calories of energy or molecules of water which course through a biological ecosystem.