Reading through the text for some information on this topic as well as the presentation from Dr. Sloane led me to this a-ha moment (not a-ha the band.) In the early part of our textbook, Fundamentals of Information Studies, there was discussion about what make up information. While there are various theories, more or less, they are all variations of the same concept. The one concept I will use for this entry will be Marc Porat (p.19), "Information is data that have been organized and communicated." When we jump ahead to Chapter 4, (p.70), Lester and Koehler discussed cave paintings as the earliest forms of writing. Now, put the cave painting in conjunction with the reference of Porat, we can gather information in its purest form. We see the organization of the hunters on one side and the prey on the other. We also note what type of hunting weapon is used. We can also gather the type of terrain the prey could be found. The list can go on and on but this then begs the question, how does this fit in the dissemination of information?If you remembered from an earlier entry, dissemination deals with the storage of the information. Granted how we store information today is vastly different from the beginning of man but the cave walls are the very low tech versions of a computer server. The information is in essence stored on the wall and the targeted audience, i.e. other cavemen, would gather the information. This is just one of many ways information can be disseminated.
1 comment:
Good point about what actually makes up information. There is a lot of contextual information that needs to be considered when you discuss these concepts.
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