Un futuro" ecologico" per la comunicazione?

The paper aims to define the contours of a media ecology, both through an historical reconnaissance, and through a discussion of the meanings, limits and specific objects that the ecological approach provide to a sociological theory of culture and communication. The first part of the article discusses the object of the discipline, consisting of the media ecosystem, interrelated with the social system and the subsystems of different media. The second part studies the ecological attitude towards media, intended not only as a science, but as an increasingly widespread sensibility at the level of institutions and public opinion. The third part presents some epistemological and methodological considerations that can be extended to the entire sociological discipline.