Shannon, Wiener, and the alethic value of information

Mestre, Juliana

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130750 Copy

Description

Title

Shannon, Wiener, and the alethic value of information

Author(s)

Mestre, Juliana

Issue Date

2024-10-16

Keyword(s)

• Information Science
• Claude Shannon
• Norbert Wiener
• History of LIS
• Truth and information
• Information ethics
• Information use
• Political economy of the information society

Abstract

This paper uses historical and deconstructive methods to examine contrasting visions of information’s alethic value. It focusses specifically on the research and legacies of Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener, two founding fathers of information science. Shannon’s formulation of information as a statistical function of probability emphasizes a kind of pragmatism: information that can be broken into bits and transmitted through a system possesses alethic value. Wiener’s research and career set a contrasting example to that of Shannon in relation to a construction of truth. The alethic value of information in the Wienerian tradition is derived not only from its pragmatic transference within a system, but also from the way in which it interacts with other systems through feedback loops. The dichotomy set by Shannon and Wiener implicates broader questions surrounding conceptualizations of truth in LIS research today.

Publisher

Association for Library and Information Science Education

Series/Report Name or Number

Proceedings of the ALISE Annual Conference, 2024

Type of Resource

text

Genre of Resource

• Conference Paper
• Presentation

Language

eng

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130750

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21900/j.alise.2024.1737

Copyright and License Information

• Copyright 2024 Juliana Mestre
• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

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