Information

Definition

Information is an abstract concept that refers to something which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed, or their abstractions. Any natural process that is not completely random and any observable pattern in any medium can be said to convey some amount of information. Whereas digital signals and other data use discrete signs to convey information, other phenomena and artifacts such as analogue signals, poems, pictures, music or other sounds, and currents convey information in a more continuous form. Information is not knowledge itself, but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation.

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Shannon Claude Shannon Clever Hans Climate communication Closed-loop communication Closed system Code of conduct Cogito, ergo sum Cognitive bias Cognitive dissonance Coin flip Collections management Collective Collective animal behavior Collective behavior Collective consciousness Collective effervescence Collective intelligence Collective narcissism Collective unconscious Colonialism Comedy Common good Communalism (Bookchin)Communication Communication design Communication studies Communication theory Communicology Communism Communitarianism Compact disc Comparative mythology Competitive advantage Complex adaptive system Complex system Computation Computer-mediated communication Computer data storage Computer science Concept Conceptual framework Conceptual system Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Confirmation bias Conformity Confucianism Congruence bias Conscience Consciousness Consensus theory Consensus theory of truth Consent Conservatism Constitutionalism Constraint (information theory)Context Context (linguistics)Control system Convention (norm)Conventional wisdom Conversation Coronation Corporate governance Corporate memory Cosmogony Cosmology Cosmos Creation myth Creativity Crisis communication Criteria of truth Critical theory Critical thinking Critique of Pure Reason Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural psychology Crowd manipulation Crowd psychology Cryptography Cryptomnesia Culpability Cult Cultural anthropology Cultural artifact Cultural bias Cultural dissonance Cultural identity Cultural movement Cultural psychology Culture Culture-bound syndrome Current (fluid)Cynicism (philosophy)Cyrenaics D. Lawrence Kincaid DNA DSL Daneshnameh-ye Alai Data Data compression Data management Data processing Data science Data storage Data transmission David B. Dusenbery David Hume David Lewis (philosopher)David Malet Armstrong De rerum natura Deborah Tannen Deindividuation Deity Dennis Overbye Deprogramming Derek Parfit Destiny Determinism Development communication Dice Digital Storage Digital age Digital signal Digital signals Discourse Discourse analysis Discovery Channel Disgust Display device Distributism Doctrine Document Documentation science Donald Davidson (philosopher)Doublethink Dualism in cosmology Duns Scotus Duty Eastern Orthodox Church Echo chamber (media)Economics Ecstasy (emotion)Ecstasy (philosophy)Education Education for librarianship Eleatics Electrical engineering Elegance Embodied cognition Emergence Emotion Emotional contagion Empiricism Employment Enactivism Encoded Encrypted Energy Engram (neuropsychology)Enneads Entertainment Entitativity Entity Entropy (information theory)Environmental communication Environmentalism Enzymes Epic poetry Epicureanism Epistemology Eretrian school Eroticism Error detection and correction Error exponent Erving Goffman Eschatology Essence Essentialism Ethics Ethics (Spinoza book)Ethnic religion Ethnic stereotype Ethnocentrism Etiology Etiquette Euphemism Event horizon Everett Rogers Everything Evidence Evolution Exabytes Excommunication Existence Existence of God Existentialism Experience Explanation Extremism Fact Factoid Faith Fallacy False consensus effect Family Family values Fanaticism Fascism Fatalism Fearmongering Feedback Feminism Feminist metaphysics Fiction Fideism Filter bubble Folie à deux Folklore Food and drink prohibitions Forced conversion Formulation Foundationalism Framing (social sciences)Francisco Suárez Free Information Infrastructure Free will Freedom of information Friedrich Nietzsche Fundamentalism Funeral Future G. E. M. Anscombe G. E. Moore Galit Shmueli Game Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel George Berkeley George Gerbner George Herbert Mead Gilbert Ryle Gilles Deleuze Globalism Glossary of library and information science Gnosis God does not play dice Golden Rule Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Green politics Gregory Bateson Group action (sociology)Group cohesiveness Group dynamics Group emotion Group polarization Groupshift Groupthink Guilt (emotion)Happiness Harmony Harold Innis Harry Nyquist Hawking radiation Health communication Hedonism Hegelianism Henri Bergson Herbert Marcuse Herd behavior Hermann Lotze Hermeneutics Hidden variable theories Hilary Putnam Hinduism Historical negationism Historical revisionism Historicism History History of communication History of communication studies History of libraries Holiday Holism Holographic data storage Holographic principle Homogeneous Homophily Honour Human rights Human sexuality Humanism Hygiene Hypostatic abstraction Hysterical contagion Hòa Hảo I. A. Richards Idea Idealism Identity (philosophy)Ideological repression Ideology Idios kosmos Illuminationism Illusion Immanuel Kant Imperialism Importance In-group and out-group In-group favoritism Incarnation Individualism Indoctrination Industrialisation Infocommunications Informatics Information-theoretic security Information (disambiguation)Information Age Information Quality (InfoQ)Information analysis Information and communication technologies Information architecture Information broker Information cascade Information continuum Information ecology Information engineering Information entropy Information geometry Information history Information inequity Information infrastructure Information management Information metabolism Information overload Information quality Information retrieval Information science Information security Information sensitivity Information systems Information technology Information theory Information visualization Information warfare Infosphere Insight Institution Intellectualism Intelligence Intelligence (Information Gathering)Intention Intercultural communication International communication Interpersonal communication Interpretation (logic)Interpretation (philosophy)Interpretations of quantum mechanics Intrapersonal communication Intuition Invisible hand Ionian School (philosophy)Irreligion Irving Janis Isaac Newton Islam Islamism Jacob Bekenstein Jacques Ellul Jainism James Gleick James W. Tankard Jr.Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard John Locke José Ortega y Gasset Journal of the American Society for Information Science Journalism Judaism Judgement Jurisprudence Justice Jürgen Habermas Kalam Kantianism Kardecist spiritism Kenneth Burke Knowledge Knowledge domain Knowledge management Knowledge representation Knowledge worker Kokugaku Korean shamanism Language Language interpretation Laozi Laplace's demon Law Law library Legalism (Chinese philosophy)Letter (alphabet)Lexicographic information cost Liberalism Libertarianism Libertarianism (metaphysics)Liberty Library and information science Library management Library science Life stance Lifestyle (social sciences)Liminality Linguistic modality Linguistics List of cognitive biases List of library associations List of library science schools List of metaphysicians List of symbols List of world folk-epics Lists of libraries Literacy Liturgy Logic Love Luciano Floridi Lucretius Ludwig Wittgenstein Lynching Magic (supernatural)Magical thinking Magnificence (history of ideas)Majoritarianism Manipulation (psychology)Manuel Castells Marriage Marshall McLuhan Martin Heidegger Masculism Mass action (sociology)Mass communication Mass media Mass noun Mass psychogenic illness Materialism Matter (philosophy)Max Horkheimer Max Wertheimer Maxim (philosophy)Meaning-making Meaning (existential)Meaning (linguistics)Meaning (philosophy)Meaning of life Means of communication Measurement in quantum mechanics Media (communication)Media bias Media ecology Media manipulation Media regulation Media studies Mediated cross-border communication Medical library Meditations on First Philosophy Megarian school Meme Memeplex Memory Mental model Mental representation Mereology Message Meta-communication Meta-knowledge Meta (prefix)Metadata Metanarrative Metaphysical necessity Metaphysics Metaphysics (Aristotle)Methodology Michael Buckland Michael Dummett Milieu control Militarism Mind Mindset Mind–body dualism Mind–body problem Miracle Misanthropy Missionary Mob rule Mobbing Models of communication Modern paganism Modernism Mohism Monadology Monarchism Monism Moral entrepreneur Moral panic Morality Motion Mozi Multicellular Music Mutual information Myth and ritual Mythology Nat (unit)National epic National myth Nationalism Natural law Natural philosophy Naturalism (philosophy)Nature Nature (philosophy)Neil Postman Neo-Kantianism Neo-scholasticism Neoplatonism Neopythagoreanism Neurobiology New Confucianism New historicism New media Newspaper Nick Morgan Nicolas Malebranche Nihilism Niklas Luhmann Noam Chomsky Nonfiction Nonverbal communication Nonviolent Communication Nora C. Quebral Nothing Nucleotide Nyāya Sūtras Oath Obligation Observation Observational error Observational learning Observer-expectancy effect Ontology Optimism Organism Organizational communication Origin myth Otherworld Outline of communication Outline of epistemology Outline of library and information science Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press P. F. Strawson Pacifism Paradigm Parmenides Pattern Pattern recognition Pattern theory Paul Beynon-Davies Peace Peer pressure Perceived Perception Peripatetic school Persuasion Pessimism Phenomenalism Phenomenology (philosophy)Pheromone Philosophical realism Philosophical theory Philosophy Philosophy of information Philosophy of matter Philosophy of mind Philosophy of psychology Philosophy of self Philosophy of space and time Physical object Physicalism Physics Picture Pierre-Simon Laplace Piety Pilgrimage Placebo Plagiarism detection Plato Platonism Play (activity)Plotinus Pluralist school Pluralistic ignorance Poems Point of view (philosophy)Polite fiction Political communication Political correctness Political engineering Political freedom Political myth Positivism Post-structuralism Postmodernism Pragmatics Pragmatism Praxeology Pre-Socratic philosophy Predict Preservation (library and archive)Presupposition Primal world beliefs Principle Private library Probability Probability theory Problem of evil Proclus Progressivism Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Propaganda Propaganda model Property (philosophy)Proposition Proselytism Pseudoconsensus Psychological warfare Public library Public library advocacy Public morality Public relations Public speaking Punishment Pyrrhonism Pythagoreanism Qualia Quality (philosophy)Quantification (science)Quantum computing Quantum information Quantum mechanics R. G. Collingwood Radical politics Ralph Hartley Random Random process Random variable Rastafari Rationalism Reading Reality Reality tunnel Reason Receiver operating characteristic Recluse Records management Reductionism Reformism Relations (philosophy)Relative entropy Relativism Relevance Religion Religious conversion Religious cosmology Religious ecstasy Religious education Religious law Religious persecution Religious uniformity Renaissance humanism René Descartes Repentance Representation (mathematics)Republicanism Revelation Reverence (emotion)Revolution Rhetoric Rights Risk communication Rite of passage Ritual Ritual purification Robert K. Logan Robert T. Craig Roland Barthes Roman Jakobson Rudolf Carnap Satisficing Saul Kripke Scapegoating Schema (psychology)Scholasticism School library School of Names School of Naturalists School of thought Science (journal)Science and technology studies Science communication Scientific evidence Scientific realism Secular coming-of-age ceremony Secularity Selective exposure theory Selective perception Self Self-censorship Self-deception Self-fulfilling prophecy Self-organization Semantics Semiotics Sense Sensors Sentientism Sequence Serfdom Set (psychology)Sexual ethics Shape Shinto Sign (semiotics)Signal Sikhism Simulacra and Simulation Sin Slavery Social action Social anthropology Social behavior Social change Social class Social constructionism Social control Social democracy Social emotions Social engineering (political science)Social exclusion Social facilitation Social facilitation in animals Social group Social influence Social norm Social organization Social progress Social proof Social psychology Social reality Social status Social stigma Socialism Sociolinguistics Sociology Solipsism Sophist Sophist (dialogue)Soul Sound Source coding Special library Speech Spinozism Spiritualism (philosophy)Spontaneous order Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Statistical inference Statistical mechanics Statistics Status quo Status quo bias Stereotype Stewardship Stigmergy Stimulation Stoicism Structuralism Study of global communication Style (visual arts)Subject and object (philosophy)Subjectivism Sublime (philosophy)Substance theory Substantial form Suffering Supernatural Suppression of dissent Swarm behaviour Symbol Symbolic boundaries Sympathy Syntax System System justification Systemic bias Systems theory Søren Kierkegaard Taboo Tacit assumption Taoism Technical communication Telecommunication Telecommunications Teleology Tenrikyo Testimony Text and conversation theory The New York Times The Phenomenology of Spirit The World as Will and Representation Theodicy Theodor W. Adorno Theology Theory of everything Theory of forms Thermal physics Thomas Aquinas Thomas Reid Thomism Thought Timaeus (dialogue)Time Tradition Transcendentalism Transmission (telecommunications)Trust (social science)Truth Truthmaker theory Type theory Type–token distinction UC Berkeley School of Information Umwelt Uncertainty Unclean animal Understanding Unicellular Unit of information Unitarian Universalism Universal (metaphysics)Universe University of California at Berkeley University of Chicago Press Unobservable Unspoken rule Utilitarianism Value (ethics)Value system Values education Vance Packard Veganism Vice Vilém Flusser Viral phenomenon Virtue Visual communication Vitalism Voyager program Walter Benjamin Walter Fisher (professor)Walter J. Ong Walter Lippmann Wave function Weltschmerz Wendell Johnson Wilbur Schramm Willard Van Orman Quine Wishful thinking Woozle effect Work of art World disclosure Worldview Worship Writing Written text Wrongdoing Yangism YouTube ZIP files Zoroastrianism

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