Characteristics
Often in sociological literature, an ecology is seen to be anchored in a geographical area of human settlement. In the case of a communicative ecology, while the majority of studies have been conducted in physical environments, it is also possible to use the framework to examine ecologies grounded in an online environment. In many cases, communicative ecologies move seamlessly across both kinds of settings. For example, settings may include both public and private spaces, transport infrastructure and websites, in any combination.
Different settings have distinct affordances that may facilitate or hinder communication within an ecology. In a physical setting this might mean a neighbourhood has several coffee shops and parks where residents can interact. In an online setting, certain design features may enable certain types of communication and constrain others. For example, discussion boards facilitate one-to-many or many-to-many collective forms of communication but not one-to-one or peer-to-peer style networked communication that would be better served by SMS or instant messaging (Foth & Hearn, 2007).
Similar to biological ecologies, communicative ecologies have lifecycles. They can be described as new or well-established, active or dormant, or in a period of growth or decline. For example, residents of a new master-planned housing estate will have a young communicative ecology that is in a period of growth but may need cultivation in order to become active. In this case, sociocultural animation of the ecology may be required for it to become socially sustainable (Tacchi et al., 2003).
Communicative ecologies can be conceived as having three layers and differing across several spectral dimensions. The nature of a communicative ecology changes as its members engage in and transition between different types of activities.
Read more about this topic: Communicative Ecology