Between Communication and Information

Brent D. Ruben

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351294706
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The current popularity of such phrases as "information age" and 'information society" suggests thatlinks between information, communication, and: behavior have become closer and more complex in a technology-dominated culture. Social scientists have adopted an integrated approach to these concepts, opening up new theoretical perspectives on the media, social psychology, personal relationships, group process, international diplomacy, and consumer behavior. Between Communication and Information maps out a richly interdisciplinary approach to this development, offering innovative research and advancing our understanding of integrative frameworks.This fourth volume in the series reflects recently established lines of research as well as the continuing interest in basic areas of communications theory and practice. In Part I contributors explore the junction between communication and information from various theoretical perspectives, delving into the multilayered relationship between the two phenomena. Cross-disciplinary approaches in the fields of etymology and library science are presented in the second section. Part III. brings together case studies that examine the interaction of information and communication at individual and group levels; information exchanges between doctors and patients, children and computers, journalists and electronic news sources are analyzed in depth. The concluding segment focuses on large social contexts in which the interaction of communication and information affects the evolution of institutions and culture.Between Information and Communication both extends and challenges current thinking on the mutually supporting interplay of information and human behavior. It will be of interest to sociologists, media analysts, and communication specialists.

PART I

THEORIES

1

Communication and Information

Jorge Reina Schement

In the rhetoric of the Information Age, communication and information are converging toward synonymous meanings. Consider organizational structures like information systems/communication systems, which executives speak of managing without differentiation. Or, information technology/communication technology, typically used interchangeably by engineers. Indeed, managerial professionals speak of communication flows as functionally equivalent to information flows, all the while disregarding the semantic differences. Similarly, in the technical press, one reads of global information/world communication, and communications flows/information flows, where journalists freely exchange information and communication; and, in the world of international politics, United Nations diplomats have long debated the relationship between the capitalist West and the less developed countries, as part of a New World Communication Order, or New World Information Order.

On the streets, Americans implicitly assume some connection between the two concepts when engaging in ordinary discourse. The questions, “Did you receive the message sent to you?” and, “Do you understand what I said?” both require an understanding of communication and information, as concepts, in order to make sense of them. Similarly, the statements, “He will give a lecture” and “Say that again” have meaning only if the receiver understands some connection between communication and information. As for more technical usages, phrases such as information retrieval, data transmission, signal interference, and electronic media, assume an explicit-to-implicit relationship between the two concepts; and, access, interface, compatibility, and fidelity, terms used commonly in technical jargon, combine the two concepts within their meanings. (Ruben, 1992b)

The purpose of this article is to explore the links between conceptualizations of information and conceptualizations of communication, and propose some research directions which may advance our understanding of these closely related phenomena.

Previous Adaptations and Investigations

As words, communication and information took on meanings which approximate mordern use in the eighteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, common meanings of the two words were indistinguishable from some current usages. However, in the early decades of the twentieth century, scientists and engineers writing in technical journals began to adapt the two words to new technological developments in electronics. The sense of communication as a transmission of electronic signals, and information as a quantity, derive from this period. (See Schement, J.R., “An Etymological Exploration of the Links Between Information and Communication” in this volume.) Furthermore, as American society shifted to one heavily dependent on the production, distribution, and consumption of information, individuals found themselves compelled to adapt these old words to new meanings. In the face of novel circumstances, Americans invented the terms illustrated at the beginning of this article.

At the same time, scientists and scholars began to grapple with diverse phenomena and label them communication and/or information. For example, in 1949, Claude Shannon published his mathematical theory of communication, in which he sought to explain the transmission of an electrical signal from one point to another. Shannon proposed that the measure of information is the logarithmic function which expresses the choice of one message (pattern of signals) from the set of all possible messages (Shannon & Weaver, 1949, p. 32). At about the same time, Norbert Wiener visualized information as part of the process of any system’s adjustment to the outer world. He posited that, in a system, information counters entropy, and postulated that a system decays when it can no longer process information from the environment or communicate information within the system (Wiener, 1950; Wiener, 1961, pp. 26-27, 31). In the 1950s, Robert M. Hayes, a founder of information studies, saw a hierarchical connection between information and data, and suggested that information resulted from processed data (Hayes, 1969). In effect, Shannon, Wiener, Hayes, and their contemporaries, considered information and communication as general concepts applicable to diverse situations, even though their definitions did not always harmonize, so that by the second half of the twentieth century, other scholars had also begun to adapt conceptualizations of communication and information, either explicitly or implicitly (Bertalanffy, 1968, p. Ill; Boulding, 1956, p. 14; Dewey, 1926, p. 332; Hoskovsky, 1968, p. 331; Machlup, 1958, p. 187; Machlup, 1962, p. 53; Mackay, 1952, p. 54; Mayo, 1933, p. 190; McLuhan, 1964, p. 59; Mumford, 1934/ 1962, p. 299; Miller, 1965, p. 872; Pierce, 1961, p. 72; Price, 1963, p. 200; Rapoport, 1966, p. 77; Ruben, 1972, p. 82; Smith, 1966, p. 323). Thus, economists like John Hirshleifer, Donald Lamberton, Meheroo Jussawalla, and Fritz Machlup, successfully brought information into economics, defining it there as consisting of those events which reduce uncertainty in making a decision, thus, adapting its meaning to conform with traditional economic perspectives (Hirshleifer, 1973; Jussawalla, 1988; Lamberton, 1971; Machlup, 1962; Machlup & Mansfield, 1983c). Machlup further argued for a view of information encompassing both the telling of something and the something that is told (significantly, Machlup’s view of information does not distinguish it from communication) (Machlup & Mansfield, 1983b).

Today, in the social sciences, the resulting literatures cross the boundaries of communication, computer science, economics, information studies, sociology, and psychology (Anderson, 1959; Artandi, 1973; Ashby, 1964; Borgman & Schement, 1990; Boulding, 1984; Farradane, 1976; Fox, 1983; Krippendorff, 1977; Lancaster & Gillespie, 1970; Mackay, 1952; Nitecki, 1985; Otten, 1975; Pierce, 1961; Pratt, 1977; Rapoport, 1966; Repo, 1989; Ruben, 1992b; Ruben & Kim, 1975; Schroder, Driver, & Streufert, 1967; Shannon & Weaver, 1949; Yovitz, 1975). Consequently, certain interpretations dominate in some social sciences, while the associated definitions do not necessarily conform to usages in other disciplines. Farther afield, in the laboratory, unanimity is equally elusive. Cellular biologists describe DNA as a “library” containing information (Dawkins, 1976; Machlup & Mansfield, 1983a), while a few physicists contend that the fundamental elements of the universe consist of binary bits of information (Campbell, 1982; Fredkin & Toffoli, 1982; Simon, 1969; Wright, 1989). So, clearly, information and communication contain utility for researchers as concepts. But, though the concepts fascinate many social, biological, and physical scientists, no interdisciplinary agreement on basic premises has emerged, and no unified theory appears imminent.

A Catalog of Observations Toward a Theory of Communication and Information

In this section, definitions of information and communication that are important in the fields of information studies, and communication studies are reviewed. I further examine the possible connections between the two sets of definitions, in order to determine if a possible overlap exists between them. Thus, although, most scholars do not consciously apply one definition over another to their work, the particular characteristics they assume influence the conduct of their research. Moreover, since communication researchers and information scientists tend to define communication and information as distinct phenomena, each field has focused on one phenomenon to the relative neglect of the other. Therefore, the analysis of definitions offers insights into the characteristics of the basic phenomena studied in each field, and to the possibility for commonalities.

Definitions of information

As twentieth century scholars have become sensitive to the significance of information as a concept valuable for the construction of their theories (see Schement, J. R., “An Etymological Exploration …”), they have sometimes approached information more as an enigma than as a concept open to systematic investigation. For example, Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, responded with a puzzle: “Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day,” and further speculated, “The fact that one finds so many different meanings for the word ‘information’ has led some to suggest that it is an irreducible term.’’ (Wiener, 1961, p. 5, 7) The Marxist physicist, Peter Paul Kirschenmann took Wiener one step further: “‘Information’ has a definite meaning only in a determined systematic way. We must, therefore, describe the contexts’’ (Kirschenmann, 1970, p. 17). He went on to state that information receives different meanings according to whether it results from ordinary language, linguistic processes, information theory, or signal theory. He then placed the question of information squarely athwart the whole tradition of Western logic. “The assumption of only two components of reality—materiality and spirituality—is based on a simplification since there is always a remnant which cannot be assigned to either and which cybernetics designates with the word ‘information.’ The very foundations of our thought—classical, twovalued logic as corresponding to a metaphysical dualism—are shaken. We must turn to a logic with at least three values’’ (Kirschenmann, 1970, p. 7). In other words, like energy, information challenges the two ontic elements of Aristotle’s forms. This may explain why some scientists equate information with energy (Fredkin & Toffoli, 1982); but if one follows Wiener’s and Kirschenmann’s supposition, to understand information requires a profound reorientation of our intellectual perspectives and traditions.

In the wake of such daunting challenges, other scholars have set more limited goals (see appendix 1.1). From their efforts, we can distinguish fundamental themes which outline current thinking on the nature of information. The foremost is one which runs strongly through the literature and is sometimes termed information-as-thing. First of all, to imagine information, which is cognitive and ephemeral, as a thing facilitates discussion, whether expressed literally, as in Diener’s unequivical description:

Information is an entity; but a thing that exists without mass or energy…. Information exists primarily in the societal universe: the domain of human, and societal, interaction…. Some of the properties of information that make it unique, and so difficult to understand, are: (a) as mentioned, it is an intangible entity not made of matter or energy; (b) by corollary, it can be reproduced and shared without loss and may even be enhanced through use; (c) it has veracity or at least a relative truth value; (d) it has a lifecycle and is ephemeral; (e) it must be processed to exist, for members of a society to totally cease to remember an item of information spells its permanent loss; and (f) it exists in two states: subjective [in the mind as “image”] and objective [in society in “language”]. (Diener, 1989, p. 17)

or metaphorically, as in Ruben’s definition.

Information is a coherent collection of data, messages, or cues organized in a particular way that has meaning or use for a particular human system. (Ruben, 1988, p. 19)

(Metaphorically, that is, because, in so far as data and messages constitute “things” as part of a linguistic category, they are not material things.) Nevertheless, it is clear that information can be encoded in material objects like books, disks, letters, and clay tablets. Consequently, some scholars take this fact as their point of departure (Diener, 1989; Fox, 1983; Hayes, 1969; Langefors & Samuelson, 1976; Ruben, 1988; Schramm, 1971). In addition, the development of technologies for storing, retrieving, and manipulating data encourage a perspective that configures information as a t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART I: Theories
• PART II: Disciplinary Connections
• PART III: Individual and Social Context
• PART IV: Societal Contexts
• Contributors
• Index of Names
• Subject Index