Practical Study on Methodology of Fieldwork in Informatics

Abstract

This paper aims at re-developing the “Information Ecosystem” model proposed in the author’s doctoral thesis. From the author’s eight-year fieldwork, the question of “what is information at the field” has been repeatedly recalled. This fundamental question is regarded as the goal of fieldwork in Informatics. And this paper tries to reexamine the methodology for fieldwork in Informatics, with reference to “Cybernetics” by Wiener, “Autopoiesis” by Maturana & Varela, “Social System” by Luhmann and “Hierarchical Autonomous Communication System” by Nishigaki.