Meanings of information: The assumptions and research consequences of three foundational LIS theories

Abstract

This article addresses the question "What is information?" by comparing the meaning of the term "information" and epistemological assumptions of three theories in library and information science (LIS): the "Shannon--Weaver model,"Brookes' interpretation of Popper's World 3, and the DIKW (Data--Information--Knowledge--Wisdom) model. It shows that the term "information" in these theories refers to empirical entities or events and is conceptualized as having causal powers upon human minds. It is argued that the epistemological assumptions have led to the negligence of the cultural and social aspects of the constitution of information 2 (i.e., how something is considered to be and not to be information) and the unquestioned nature of science in research methodologies.

Mind the Gap: Transitions Between Concepts of Information in Varied Domains

“…And, conversely, many in the library/information sciences are concerned about the application of the term 'information' to objective, meaningless patterns. Le Coadic (1987), Cole (1994), Hjørland (2007Hjørland ( , 2008, and Ma (2012), for example, argue in various ways against any equating of the idea of information as an objective and measurable 'thing' to the kind of information of interest in library and information science; this kind of information, such commentators argue, is subjective in nature, having meaning for a person in a particular context, and cannot be reduced to a single objective, still less quantifiable, definition. However, this perhaps overlooks some recent trends in the physical and biological sciences themselves: not merely the increased focus on information noted above, but a tendency towards conceptualisations involving non-linearity, systems thinking, complexity, and reflexivity.…”

“…Not only has the word had many different meanings over the years -its entry in the full Oxford English Dictionary of 2010, which shows its usage over time, runs to nearly 10,000 words -but it is used with different connotations in various domains. For overviews of the mutability and diversity of the information concept, see Belkin (1978), Machlup and Mansfield (1983), Qvortrup (1993), Bawden (2001), Capurro and Hjørland (2003), Gleick (2011), Ma (2012, and Bawden and Robinson (2012).…”

“…The second regards information and knowledge as the same kind of entity, with knowledge viewed as 'refined' information, set into some form of larger structure. This is typically presented as a linear progression, or a pyramid, from 'data', or 'capta' -data in which we are interested -through 'information' to 'knowledge', perhaps with 'wisdom' or 'action' at the far end of the spec-trum or the apex of the pyramid; see, for example, Checkland and Holwell (1998), Frické (2009), Rowley (2011), and Ma (2012).…”

A Sign on a Tree: A Case for “Public Knowledge”

“…In other words, the study of the interaction between information and mental states, strictly speaking, is not a study of information but how our brains function or how we feel about certain things-say, how a piece of music moves us. These topics are very much worth exploring and studying, but it seems that we cannot study subjective information on its own in IS, not to mention that the study of information in the sense of subjective information has resulted in the conceptualization of information that implicates a causal relationship between information and human minds (Ma, 2012a).…”

“…Hjørland maintains that informativeness is an essential quality of the concept of information: "To consider something information is thus always to consider it as informative in relation to some possible questions" (p. 1451; emphasis in original). Indeed, the situational view of information has been explained and explored from various perspectives for many decades (see, for example, Blair, 2006;Buckland, 1991;Ma, 2012a;Machlup, 1983;Mai, 2013;Swanson, 1986;Wilson, 1973) and is important for both research and practical work in information science because it considers the cultural and social nature of information. Nevertheless, although I do not totally agree with the concepts of information that Bates (2005Bates ( , 2006 proposed, I am intrigued by her quest to find "a way to think about information that effectively allows for both subjective and objective perspectives" (2005).…”