Communication’s Roles in Human Environment Relations and Their Changes with Information and Communication Technologies

Communication is a key element that defines and actualizes the environment by enabling human environment relations (HERs). Communication patterns increase and diversify with more complex and dense organized living systems such as urban environments. These patterns, however, are not static, instead they are under the influence of technological and social changes. While they were under the constraint of physical limitations such as time and space, with the improvements in information and communication technologies (ICTs), these limitations have started to dissolve which led to changes in HER relations as well as changes in social aspects of urban public life. This research represents a theoretical approach to showcase the role of communication practices in HER, specifically in urban public spaces and how improvements in ICTs affect the HER. In this context, an intensive literature review and discourse analysis was conducted and two web of relations (WoR), one to examine the relation of communication and HER and one to examine the change in ICTs, were produced and they were compared and discussed.