What is information? Toward a theory of information as objective and veridical

an article by John Mingers and Craig Standing (University of Kent, UK)
published in Journal of Information Technology Volume 33 Issue 2 (June 2018)

Abstract

Information systems are a strong and ever-growing discipline of enormous relevance to today’s informated world, and yet, as recent reviews have shown, there is still not an agreed and explicit conceptualization or definition of information.

After an evaluative review of a range of theories of information, this paper develops and defends a particular theory, one that sees information as both objective and veridical.

By objective, we mean that the information carried by signs and messages exists independently of its receivers or observers. The information carried by a sign exists even if the sign is not actually observed.

By veridical, we mean that information must be true or correct in order to be information – information is truth-constituted.

False information is not information, but misinformation or disinformation.

The paper develops this theory and then discusses four contentious issues:

• information as objective rather than subjective;
• information as true or correct;
• information and knowledge; and
• information and the ambiguity of meaning.

It concludes with a discussion of the practical implications of the theory.

The Appendix which you can access here makes interesting reading but the full article will cost you.

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A library is not the books: an ethical obstacle to the digital library

an article by James M. Donovan, (College of Law Library, University of Kentucky, USA) published in Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society Volume 10 Issue 2 (2012)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that libraries do not inevitably arise from the aggregation of information, and to apply this result to critique the meaningfulness of the idea of a “digital library.”
Design/methodology/approach
Three independent arguments demonstrate that libraries are more than the sum of the books that they contain: first, the logical argument, which analyses the internal consistency of claims for the superiority of electronic formats; second, the semantic argument, which examines ordinary language to isolate the core requirements of what it means to be a “library”; and third, the ethical argument, which identifies the source of the unique phenomenological experience of encounter with the library.
Findings
It is found that the three arguments each refute the view that “library” is the collective noun for “book”, and argue instead that it is an emergent concept that offers to its community a reflection of the local cultural knowledge through the ordinary selection and organization practices that distinguish libraries from other book accumulations. Against that understanding the idea of a comprehensive and universal digital library fails on the essential criteria of selectivity and organization. While such products can be powerfully useful, they offer something distinct from libraries. When we lose sight of this difference we risk losing the inherent and irreducible values embodied by libraries.
Originality/value
The paper’s arguments provide a reasoned infrastructure to several beliefs that are both common and unexamined.

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