ABSTRACT
In this chapter we use an ecology metaphor to describe the new technology and media environment as a system consisting of many dynamic and interdependent factors. These factors include the people, information, practices, and media and technology tools that make up the system and which consist of physical (abiotic) and living (biotic) components that interact to form complex relationships that evolve over time (Zhao & Frank, 2003). For our purposes, the physical or abiotic elements of the Web are made up of the hardware and software of existing technologies and media, the infrastructures for interlinked hypertext and interactive information sharing, and the architecture of participation that characterizes social media. These physical elements include Web 1.0 and 2.0 tools as well as previous and new technologies, such as mobile or handheld computing devices that are changing the ecology. The living or biotic components are the users of these technologies and tools and the relationships and communities they foster. Technologies and the data and information they convey represent deep assumptions about ways of knowing and participating, even as they appear to be bias-free tools and representations of the world (Bowers, 2002). People and their values are deeply imbricated with the technologies they create and use and these technologies, in turn, shape social relations, social practices, and the construction of knowledge.
