Document 6508653

How to do things with information
Jens-­‐Erik Mai
University of Copenhagen
Royal School of Library and Information Science
Berliner Bibliothekswissenschaftliches Kolloquium
May 7, 2013
Webster (1995) -­‐ five notions of information society:
1. technological
2. economic
3. occupational 4. spatial
5. cultural (“we inhabit a media-­‐laden society”, p. 21)
Finnemann (2001) -­‐ all societies are information societies: 1. oral
2. oral + writing
3. oral + writing + print
4. oral + writing + print + electric media 5. oral + writing + print + electric media + digital media
Everyday speak in an information society:
“The information age...”
“This hard disk contains 2 terabytes information”
“I was informed that...”
“I am overwhelmed by all the information about...”
“I have information about...”
“I need information about...”
“This book contains information about...”
“There is more information about... here.”
The information society should be our time...
But...
“What can be the purpose of a university-­‐based professional school if research is not centered on the design of improved services?”
Buckland, 1996, p. 74
Until...
“The emergence and evolution of iSchools was triggered by the explosive growth in digital information.”
Larson, 2008
Information
Technology
People
Information as stuff, as commodity, as object.
Now we can: do things with information!
Information policy
Information organization
Information use
Information dissemination
Information storage
Information explosion
Information retrieval
Information collection
Information management
Information evaluation
Information transfer
Information seeking
Information quality
Information behaviour
Information interaction
Information ethics
Information properties
Information representation
Information things Information overload
Information anxiety
Information need Information grounds
Information work
Information experience Information _________
“The information age...”
“This hard disk contains 2 terabytes information”
“I was informed that...”
“I am overwhelmed by all the information about...”
“I have information about...”
“I need information about...”
“This book contains information about...”
“There is more information about... here.”
Distinct technical conception of information? “the notion of information in information science is substantially identical with the ordinary notion of information” Fox, 1983, p. 5 “I need information about...”
“This document has information about...”
We talk about information -­‐ but are interested in knowledge...
Information is central to information studies in two ways...
1: That’s what the field deals in...
“Information science is a discipline that investigates the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information for optimum accessibility and usability. It is concerned with that body of knowledge relating to the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, transmission, transformation, and utilization of information. This includes the investigation of information representations in both natural and artificial systems, the use of codes for efficient message transmission, and the study of information processing devices and techniques such as computers and their programming systems. It is an interdisciplinary science derived from and related to such fields as mathematics, logic, linguistics, psychology, computer technology, operations research, the graphic arts, communications, library science, management, and other similar fields. It has both a pure science component, which inquires into the subject without regard to its application, and an applied science component, which develops services and products.” (Borko, 1968, p. 3)
“Information science is a discipline that investigates the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information for optimum accessibility and usability. It is concerned with that body of knowledge relating to the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, transmission, transformation, and utilization of information. This includes the investigation of information representations in both natural and artificial systems, the use of codes for efficient message transmission, and the study of information processing devices and techniques such as computers and their programming systems. It is an interdisciplinary science derived from and related to such fields as mathematics, logic, linguistics, psychology, computer technology, operations research, the graphic arts, communications, library science, management, and other similar fields. It has both a pure science component, which inquires into the subject without regard to its application, and an applied science component, which develops services and products.” (Borko, 1968, p. 3)
Information policy
Information organization
Information use
Information dissemination
Information storage
Information explosion
Information retrieval
Information collection
Information management
Information evaluation
Information transfer
Information seeking
Information quality
Information behaviour
Information interaction
Information ethics
Information properties
Information representation
Information things Information overload
Information anxiety
Information need Information grounds
Information work
Information experience
Information _________
2: It’s the conceptual inventory of the field... “Different conceptions of ... information are ... more or less fruitful, depending on the theories ... they are expected to support”
Capurro & Hjørland, 2002, p. 344
Semantic chameleon. 100s of definitions.
What is information?
What is information studies?
“How to do things with information”
Speech acts
Some utterances perform -­‐ they do something...
[Not merely ‘describe’ or ‘constate’ something]
Talk and words are often political and value-­‐laden...
"The ways in which [information studies’] ‘keywords’ -­‐-­‐ ‘information,’ ‘information users,’ and ‘information uses’ -­‐-­‐ are used set the limits of possible questions, issues, hypotheses, demonstrations, data, and research methodologies. These ways of talking are not neutral with respect to institutional structures." Frohmann, 2004
The way we talk about information in information studies creates the kind of information studies we get...
Depending on what we agree information to be, information studies will study different things, ask different questions, and allow for different epistemologies... Jonathan Furner (2011): “what ought information science to be like?”
Michael Buckland (2012): “what kind of science can information science be?”
Birger Hjørland (2013): “is library and information science an academic discipline?” Answers to these questions lies in our conception of information
What is information?
Cut #1 -­‐ Brookes K [S] + ∆I = K [S + ∆S] -­‐ “an objective rather than a subjective theory of knowledge” (p. 127)
-­‐ “information and knowledge are of the same kind”; they can “be measured in the same units” (p. 131)
Brookes, 1980
Cut #2 -­‐ Dretske:
-­‐ “Information is ... different from knowledge”
-­‐ “it is independent of what we think or believe. It is independent of what we know”
-­‐ “without life there is no knowledge (because there is nobody to know anything), but there is still information” Dretske, 2008, p. 31 Cut #3 -­‐ Floridi:
-­‐ “treat data and information as reified entities, that is, stuff that can be manipulated (consider, for example, the now common expressions ‘data mining’ and ‘information management’)” (p. 20) -­‐ information is “meaningful independent of an informee” (p. 22)
Floridi, 2010
Common for: Brookes, Dretske, Floridi [and others]
Information is reified stuff... information without humans.
-­‐ information things (Buckland, 1991) -­‐ “information bearing messages” (Svenonius, 2000, p. 8)
-­‐ “concepts are extracted from documents” (ISO, 1985, p. 2)
-­‐ “things that we create to speak for us” (Levy, 2001, p. 26)
➡ Information exists “independently of whether it is perceived by any human being” (Furner, 2007, p. 147) If information is stuff in the world...
1. It is what it is...
2. True. [Correspondence theory.]
[
]
"The reification of information as a resource, which stands at the heart of the information society idea, is not … recent in origin, but parallels the development of modernity” Black 1998, p. 41 [
]
-­‐ Information: true
versus:
-­‐ Disinformation: deliberately misleading
-­‐ Misinformation: honest mistakes
“... a well-­‐established tradition of library and information science theory ... understands ideas as being quasi-­‐empirical objects—generated in the minds of authors—that are contained in documents and that are sought by and transferred to the minds of information seekers or users upon reading, viewing, or listening” Day, 2008, p. 1644
“Largely unacknowledged influence of the realist view on the activity of designers and users of knowledge organization systems.” “It is difficult to find well-­‐reasoned defenses of the realist view in the literature, yet most of us ... continue to act as if we accept the realist view as the correct one.”
Furner, 2010, p. 186-­‐187
Information studies – or rather classic information studies – is concerned with the production, organization, retrieval and use of information. information ≈ documents
[or: ideas, opinions, claims or facts represented or expressed in books, journal papers, newspapers, photos, films, webpages, etc.] “Information is commonly spoken of as being carried by a very wide range of entities, including pictures, drawings, photographs, plans, blueprints and graphs, spoken and written languages, gestures, hand signals and other non-­‐
verbal behavior, genes and DNA, electro-­‐magnetic and sound waves, mechanical and electro-­‐mechanical devices, records, tapes, films, holographs and video-­‐disks, and so on.” Fox, 1983, p. 7
Documents
Container
Content
“I need information about...”
“This information shows that...”
Is information studies a science about content or containers?
Or both?
Created with the intention to communicate:
-­‐ to tell something -­‐ to argue something
-­‐ to inform about something
-­‐ to convince someone about something
-­‐ to state something
-­‐ etc.
Aboutness -­‐ meaning -­‐ interpretation -­‐ humans.
Cut #4 -­‐ Hjørland:
1. The objective understanding (Observer independent, situation independent). Versions of this view have been put forward by, for example, Parker, Dretske, Stonier, and Bates. Bates’ version implies: Any difference is information.
2. The subjective/situational understanding. Versions have been put forward by, for example, Bateson, Yovits, Spang-­‐
Hanssen, Brier, Buckland, Goguen, and Hjørland. This position implies: Information is a difference that makes a difference (for somebody or for something or from a point of view).
Hjørland, 2007, p. 1449
Cut #5 -­‐ Nunberg:
1. Abstract sense: “where it refers not to ‘knowledge ... concerning some particular fact, subject, or event;' but rather to a kind of intentional substance that is present in the world, a sense that is no longer closely connected to the use of the verb ‘inform,’ anchored in particular speech acts” (Nunberg, 1996, p. 110).
2. Particularistic sense: “information about such and such” (p.122) -­‐ “One way of making this point is to consider how we translate these various phrases into other European languages, where the particularistic sense of ‘information’ is rendered by count nouns, usually in the plural-­‐-­‐French infonnations or renseignements, Italian informazioni, Modem Greek plirofories, and so on” (Nunberg, 1996, p. 111).
Abstract
“This ‘presence’ of abstract information is one of the crucial properties that distinguishes it from particularistic information. This is what makes it possible to talk about it as a measurable quantity, particularly in the claims about the ‘information explosion’ that people like to make with extravagant exactitude” Nunberg, 1996, p. 111
Particularistic
“When we talk about ‘information’ particularistically -­‐ as information about such and such -­‐ we can modify it using qualifiers like ‘reliable’ or ‘unreliable,’ ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect,’ and so on”.
Nunberg, 1996, p. 122
Senses of information (according to Nunberg):
1. “The information age...” Abstract
2. “This library contains 10 terabytes information” Abstract
3. “I was informed that...” Particularistic
4. “I am overwhelmed by all the information about...” Particularistic
5. “I have information about...” A or P?
6. “I need information about...” A or P?
7. “This document contains information about...” A or P?
8. “There is more information about... over here.” A or P?
Particularistic
[
Abstract
Medium
]
Medium as channel...
Medium as language...
Medium as environment...
Meyrowitz, 1993 Cut #6:
Two kinds of information.
1. focused on the amount of information. 2. focused on the transfer of messages between people.
Cut #6a:
Further subdivision of:
2. focused on the transfer of messages between people.
(i) concerned with systems that facilitate the transmission
of messages.
(ii) concerned with the meaning of the messages being
transferred.
Two main schools of information and communication:
-­‐ process school: transmission of messages.
-­‐ semiotic school: production and exchange of meaning.
process school: -­‐ transmission of messages
-­‐ efficiency and accuracy
-­‐ the act of communication
-­‐ the message is what the sender puts into it by whatever means
semiotic school: -­‐ production and exchange of meanings
-­‐ signification
-­‐ text and culture
-­‐ the works of communication
-­‐ the message is a construction of signs
Fiske, 2011, p. 3
“The process of representing documents for retrieval is fundamentally a linguistic process, and the problem of describing documents for retrieval is, first and foremost, a problem of how language is used.” Blair 1990, p. 122
“Meaning is not an absolute, static concept to be found neatly parcelled up in the message. Meaning is an active process...” Fiske, 2011, p. 43-­‐44
Meaning is created from signs
Kinds of signs
icons: resemblance; e.g. the sign on a bathroom door
indexes: points to what the sign refers to; e.g. smoke to a fire
symbols: refers via conventions; e.g. language
Scale of motivation
social dimension
iconic
arbitrary
(symbols)
degree of convention
degree of motivation or constraint
interchangeable
“describing what we want and evaluating what we retrieve is a lot like a conversation” Blair, 2003, p. 29
The way we talk about information in information studies creates the kind of information studies we get...
Which questions could be asked?
-­‐ Information as quasi-­‐empirical objects...
-­‐ Information as epistemic phenomena...
quasi-­‐empirical
information as bits that are be managed, moved, sought, organized and used
focus on information as objects/containers...
questions:
-­‐ what is the most efficient way to search for information?
-­‐ how does ______ use information?
-­‐ which roles do information play in the life of ______?
epistemic
information as particularistic that means something to somebody, that impacts people’s lives, that is right or wrong, true or untrue, useful or not.
focus on people’s engagement with mediated information
Questions:
-­‐ what would a just search engine look like?
-­‐ which acts creates good information exchange?
-­‐ what are the changing roles of media in an info society?
-­‐ why is information important?
-­‐ what roles do IT play in the construction of society?
Information studies explores the interpretative, societal, social and contextual dependent understandings of information exchange.
Thanks
Jens-­‐Erik Mai
jenserikmai.info
How to do things with information
Jens-­‐Erik Mai
University of Copenhagen
Royal School of Library and Information Science
Berliner Bibliothekswissenschaftliches Kolloquium
May 7, 2013
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