Definitions and scope
Information exchanges: Many activities of the human mind result in some
inscription or encoding of an intermediate product, which can then be processed,
transmitted, displayed, perceived by other humans thanks to technical mediations.
Information exchanges processes go from the human intention of creating
these intermediate products to convey some information, knowledge, thought,
beauty or pleasure to the human activities of using them. These intermediate
products can be analogue (such as letters and analogue coding of sound
signals in telephone conversation) or digital (such as encoded text in
email messages, HTML Web pages or digital broadcasting). Sometimes information
is directly produced by humans (e.g. when someone writes a paper); sometimes
humans set up an automatic process to produce it, for instance the collection
of meteorological data. There is no strict border between information and
non-information physical goods, but it is hoped that common sense can sort
out where to draw the limit in specific instances. When discussing how
people use their time, it may be worth to include also many direct exchanges
(such as face-to-face conversation), since important activities are conducted
using a combination of mediated and direct exchanges. By focusing on human
activities of producing, processing, distributing, accessing and using
information, it is intended to avoid entering into philosophical debates
on the limits between data and information or about why something acquires
the quality of being « information ». In contrast, issues such
as information quality and the quality of the relation users have to information
appear to be more interesting description layers.
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