Applying a metaphor of ‘ecology’, with its connotations of the natural environment, to thinking about the Internet, provides a framework to conceptualise the Internet as a diverse  interconnected system. It also points to the necessity of considering the Internet, and indeed technologies in general, as not existing in a vacuum, but rather as part of the social, political and economic forces in which the technology is embedded. It also makes me think of the Internet as evolutionary, not static, and the nature of the transactions that take place over the network.

Additionally, thinking of information ecologies reinforces the idea of the power of the knowledge, or more specifically the ascendancy that control of information provides, in an environment made up of information. This can be illustrated in the gap between information rich and poor countries and the implications that this gap has for social and economic development, and also the effects that this unbalance has on the relationship between those with information power and those without.

Definitely looking at the wider picture when considering this concept…

Further use of metaphor and the Internet…

rhizome

I have come across the metaphor of the ‘rhizome’ and how it applies to the Internet and the presentation of knowledge. A rhizome in nature is a plant that has the characteristics  of being anti genealogical, without center, and able to be connected with any other part of its structure. If any part of the rhizome is broken up it will grow again. In the paper “Hypertextuality” by Sergo Cicconi, the author provides a view of the application of the metaphor of the rhizome (citing Deleuze and Guattari) to the characteristics of hypertext.

Cicconi relates the history of the attitudes towards the organisation of Western knowledge. The encyclopedic categorising of knowledge has favoured the creation of hierarchies as an organisational system, likened to the structure of a tree (The Tree of Knowledge). The contrast is made with the nature of hypertext which allows the creation of a decentralised, infinitely expandable network of information which allows a “multiplicity of paths and the constant remodeling of its own structures and contents.” (Cicconi, 199). In this way, the more relevant metaphor to apply to the hypertextual representation of knowledge is that of the rhizome.

Understanding through metaphor…

The Internet is a plant! (Ok, I need to go lie down now, my head hurts… signing out)

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