Welcome to the Information Ecosystems Project

The project seeks to advance a deeply powerful understanding of where data comes from and how it is used, setting the present moment within a century-long history of information supply and its power-laden consequences. At a moment when societies are in urgent need of guidance to navigate rapidly shifting digital terrain, we are coming together to build a deep understanding of the social and political life of data.

On this site, you will find a series of essays on the work and ideas of the series of invited speakers who participated in the 2019-2020 Information Ecosystems Sawyer Seminar. These convenings traced the interlinked processes through which the creation of data (and its absence) has played out both within society as a whole, and within the academic disciplines to which we turn for our understandings of societies, cultures, and individuals.

You will also find the Information Ecosystems (InfoEco) Cookbook. The InfoEco Cookbook is an Open Educational Resource (OER) supported by a Sawyer Seminar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and facilitated by the Visual Media Workshop at the University of Pittsburgh.