New approaches to the history of information: Ecosystems, infrastructures, and graphical representations of information

The article defines the concepts of information ecosystems and information infrastructures, arguing that they are useful tools for shaping historical research on information. Their primary advantage lies in the ability to define a research agenda in increasingly specific terms, thereby controlling the scope of the research, and to describe otherwise ambiguous ideas. The author then illustrates the use of graphical representations of information, borrowing techniques that scientists, business managers, and other disciplines deploy to reduce the ambiguity of an idea. He concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the approaches presented in this essay.