How has Information Changed?
Dave Warlick,
2 cents worth,
Jun 14, 2007
Tom Hoffman's observations - that this post is not about the nature of information at all - are on point. But the post is illustrative of common misconceptions about the changing nature of media. Of these, forst is probably the confusion between 'information' and 'content'. By 'content' we can mean the messages sent over various media, including television, tabloid newspapers, email, radio, and the rest. But not all of this content is information - if the message is one you've already heard, or if the message is of no use to you, then it is not 'information'. To be information, the content needs to change your understanding of the world (cf. Fred Dretske). A second misconception is in the confusion between the medium and the information. If the information is 'Paris is the capital of France', the medium - be it networked, physical, overwhelming - does not change this information. Paris remains the capital of France. What changes is our understanding of the information - be cause we, being inescapably human, cannot resist bringing our prejudices and biases to the table.
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