ABSTRACT
Social power resides in the ability to define a social situation. The capacity to define and sustain definitions of situations for self and others is the capacity to construct social reality. The elements of the ecology of communication include information technology (IT), communication formats, and an activity, which provides the substantive material to fill out the temporal/spatial dimensions of IT and formats. Controlling information did not originate with the state and information technology, but as organizations were established to produce information for a political/ideological purpose the problem became more “pressing”. The project is the continuation of a broader concern with social power and the reflexive relationship between the nature of social activities and the communication process through which they are produced and accomplished. The ecology of communication is a conception, perspective, and research program on additional dimensions of communication in our lives.
