The nature of information

The first reading (Dearnley, J., & Feather, J. (2001). Theorizing the information society. In The wired world: An introductionto the theory and practice of the information society (pp. 1 - 24). London, England: Library Association.) talks about what 'information' is and its relationship to knowledge. I remember this issue came up in the first Open Polytech paper I did - The Information Industry. After reading and thinking about the issue I decided that information was something that was external (documents, objects) whereas knowledge was internal (in your brain) and arose from processing information. These are the mind maps I drew to try and clarify my thinking.


According to Dearnley and Feather, I was on the right track. They say "information is the basis of knowledge".

The article then goes on to mention that whilst some people see the information society as something new and different, others see it as the continuation of a process of change. I think I subscribe to the latter view. I'm sure that the advent of printed books (to name just one example) must have seemed as radical in its time as the various new information technologies that are being developed today. What is different is that the speed of change seems to have entered an exponential phase.