Exploring a sustainable and public information ecology

This article explores the design and execution of an intentionally public information ecology by focusing on three of the primary communication activities (blogging, videos, and microblogging) taking place immediately before, during, and after a small international conference of digital media professionals. Drawing on an activity theory framework for analyzing data collected via an exploratory version of contextual inquiry, the author describes two interrelated categories of stabilizing moves for fomenting a public information ecology: those driven by the organization to maintain and publicize a coherent organizational identity narrative, and those driven by conference participants that sometimes diverge from that organizational narrative. Analyzing these two broad categories of stabilizing moves yields insights into how online writing practices may help foster effective and sustainable information ecologies.