As redes ambientais na internet e a gestão da natureza

Abstract

The management of nature is the subject of this thesis, mapped through the practices of signification and discussions on the environment which flow through virtual spaces. The objectives were to identify and graphically visualise the interconnections of actors, and theirpatterns of information consumption, allowing us to perceive the migration of semiotic values across digital environments. The intention was to understand the formation of an ideology which directs the management of nature in today's world. The theoretical framework adopted was articulated from concepts originating in Peircean semiotics, particularly pragmatism (or how beliefs are formed) from the analysis of social networks and regimes of information. The methodology used complexity as a reference. The Actor-Network Theory and studies on thecartography of controversies made it possible to map social networks built around the preservation of nature, and to categorise the principle informational subjects. The results of the research indicate three main tendencies in the formation of informational regimes which can be observed on the network: social ecology, the green economy and deep ecology. In virtual environments, NGOs, education institutions, research centres, governments, social movements and individuals are informational subjects which discuss ecology according tothree biases: that of the conservation of areas of beauty and high biodiversity (deep ecology); that of the necessity of integration between ecology and culture (social ecology); that of the integration of ecology and the economy (the green economy). From thedescription of the networks and their relationships, it was possible to visualise the processesof inter-semiotic translation of memes at various points, which influence in turn collective and individual habits. The ecological policy backed by the United Nations sustains flows in large information pathways - between scientific publications, social networks and events - it is themost cohesive cluster on the network, the main actor strengthening the green economy. Flows originating in social ecology, marginalised groups and social movements in LatinAmerica, encourage a management of nature which is more decentralised and nonhierarchical, with small pathways and information percolating through collaborative spaces.Conservationists, who focus their attention on the preservation of ecosystems, propose an ideology about anthropogenic global warming, and are connected with North-American indigenous movements. We conclude that the aesthetic experience of nature, mediated bysocial actors in digital environments, unfold in proposals of action in which the user engages in a pluralistic manner, preserving nevertheless the structural logic of the identified informational regimes.