INLS 180 Human Information Interaction

1
INLS 180 Human Information Interaction

• Session 2.
• What is Communication?

2
Our understandings --

• information is the key to success
• Info used in many ways by many people and the
  way info is used, organized and presented is key
  to our understanding of the world
• Important in library science
• Practical application of librarianship, about
  actual experience of actual people in seeking
  information
• Influences and contexts
• theory and fundamental philosophy behind human
  information interaction mediates the way
  information technology is advancing
• Various ways people/individual approach their
  information quest. E.g. how their background,
  cultures, etc shape the way they search for
  information
• Problems
• Not an easy task to know what you are looking
  for as a library patron, so it can be hard to
  express your interest and get help from
  librarians. Information needs change
• The Internet quickly replaced search for basic
  information search

3
Our expectations --

• Lay foundation for future direction
• Basic principles of information interactions
  foundation for future exploration
• Gain the vocabulary, refine research interests
• Learn how to better prepare and facilitate
  information access professional concerns
• Greater understanding of how people search for
  information, and how librarians can further that
  search
• Improve ability to work effectively with the
  public and information available
• learn the role that information professionals
  playing facilitating client access to
  information, and in particular, how professionals
  can make users more comfortable in searching help
  from intermediaries
• Quest for knowledge
• Getting to know the intriguing relationship and
  interaction between human and information, esp.
  theory and fundamental philosophy behind
• Become more aware of the big picture,
  constraints, and obstacles in connecting people
  with information they seek
• how people handle the information to which they
  are exposed
• to learn how we look for, process information
  and what strategies are helpful

4
Our expectations --

• Discuss in a meaningful, qualified way
• Learn the whole thing!

5
Questions to be addressed today

• What is information?
• What is communication?

6
What is information?

• Buckland (1991)
• Thing
• Process
• Knowledge
• Marchionini (1995)
• Anything that changes ones understanding
• Shedroff (1994)
• Organized, transformed, presented
• Meaningful
• contextual

7
Universal Communication System
Information Source
Destination
Transmitter
Receiver
Channel
Message
Message
Trans- mitted signal
Received signal
Noise Source
8
What is Human Communication?

• Communication, as with information, is a term
  that is difficult to define.
• There are different kinds of communication,
  including interpersonal, persuasive, and
  organizational.

9
Neuliep 9 dimensions describe the nature of
communication

• Process
• Dynamic
• Interactive
• Transactional
• Symbolic
• Intentional
• Contextual
• Ubiquitous
• Cultural

10
Pierce Communication as a property of life

• Shannon Weaver three-level problem of
  communication
• Technical problem of how accurately symbols can
  be transmitted and how efficiently
• Semantic problem of how precisely transmitted
  symbols convey desired meaning
• Effectiveness problem of whether received meaning
  affects conduct as desired
• Chomsky introduces syntactic element (
  transformational grammar)
• Wiener adds notion of homeostasis, involving
  recognition of deviation from desired state and
  negative feedback to correct it. Pierce
  introduces the notion of a communication
  network and communities of interest

11
Pierces message

• Communication can take place only between people
  with a common aim, a common problem, a common
  curiosity, a common interest in other words,
  something in common that is meaningful and
  important or fascinating to both.
• The need for communication arises because
  something unguessable must be imparted concerning
  our understanding or actions.

12
Channels and Audiences Communication Situations
(Schramm)

• Private
• Face-to-face
• Interposed
• Public
• Face-to-face
• Interposed
• Assembled
• Nonassembled

13
Schramm Channels and Audiences

• Classify channels by
• the senses affected,
• the opportunity for feedback,
• the amount of receiver control,
• the type of message-coding,
• the multiplicative power, and
• the power of message preservation
• Selective attention and perception of audience
  (fraction of selection expected reward/effort)
• Availability of stimulus
• Contrast with background
• Experience of the receiver
• Estimated usefulness of the stimuli
• Education and social status

14
For Group Discussion

• your questions and key points from the readings?
• your attribute list to describe information and
  communication?
• relationship between information and
  communication?
• Role of technology in communication?

15
For next week

• How does the way that we communicate affect our
  ability to solve problems?
• How do these views and perspectives on
  information and communication help us to
  understand information-seeking behaviors and help
  people to find what they are looking for?