Toward an Information Ecology Theory of Digital Resilience

Over the years, sociotechnical theories have become the foundation of Information Systems research. Yet, this theoretical foundation excludes explicit consideration of nature – our physical world and everything in it that is not made by humans (e.g., plants, animals, mountains, and rivers). Since natural scales are drastically different from those of sociotechnical systems, our sociotechnical foundation is inadequate as we attempt to address societal challenges with digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing. Given this theoretical limitation, we offer, in the context of climate change, building blocks of an information ecology theory, which incorporates natural scales. This theory focuses on the concept of ecosystem, not just as a metaphor, but also literally as a device for observing how information flows within and across scales shape the interactions among people, technology, and nature in an ecosystem, and, ultimately, its own resilience. This ecological scalar lens can not only expose limitations in existing solutions we take for granted, but also identify new approaches to digital resilience for the climate crisis and, possibly, other societal challenges as well.