"The ideas drawn from Shannon and Weaver’s mathematical information theory originally were, and perhaps still are, extremely useful for the development of IR systems. The information transfer model offered a clear picture of the ways in which information moves from senders to recipients through sources and channels, and such ideas often offer a sufficient background for testing and developing IR algorithms in laboratory settings.

    The information transfer perspective has appeared as natural and inevitable because of its close correspondence with the mundane understanding of information (Mokros, 1993, p. 62) as the communication of messages– usually perceived as directly mirroring reality– between senders and receivers. In this standard metanarrative, immaterial contents flow from person to person and time-space to timespace without interrogation and interpretation (Dervin, 1998). Information is understood as an abstract, disembodied entity originally existing in the mind of the sender of the message. The sender, in turn, is seen as an expert who forms knowledge by making empirical observations of the world, and who is able to transmit his ideas intact into the mind of the receiver through the mechanism of language (Reddy, 1979).

    There has been much critical discussion in LID [library, information and documentation studies] concerning the concept of “information.” Researchers like Belkin, Dervin, Ingwersen, Kuhlthau, and T. D. Wilson pointed out how the information transfer model provided us with the concept of information as an entity-like, objective, and neutral informing brick, something that “can be mined from texts and classified with great precision for retrieval” (Frohmann, 2001). In this critical discussion, it has been pointed out how the transfer metaphor is, at least implicitly, based on trust in science and scientific methods: when something has been investigated, it is known, and this truth can be transmitted to everyone, for their direct benefit, in the form of information. The assumption that there is an inverse relation between information and uncertainty has been questioned by many (e.g., Dervin, 1994). Hall (1989) stated that “information” is a “cybernetically hygienic sanitary concept” that conceals the fact that language is always “dirty,” suffused with rhetorics and power interests. He argued that the information concept fictions a sphere above cultures and contexts where people understand each other perfectly, where they do not constantly engage in battles about facts, meanings, interpretations, and classifications.

    Without theoretical and conceptual work, the traditional transmission-centered metanarrative of information is easily adopted as a starting point for planning digital libraries and their outcomes. For example, many digital library initiatives rely on the collaboration between libraries and scientific experts. In such systems, the authoritative voice of the scientific expert is easily combined with a view of users as “laypersons” in need of “reliable, scientifically sound and unbiased information” (Brenneise & Marks, 2001, p. 116).

    The information transmission view implicitly contains an assumption that users simply need access to high-quality, timely, reliable, and valid information. However, in adopting such a view, we simultaneously accredit the power to define what is known and known objectively to scientists and other authoritative message senders (politicians, CEOs of multinational firms, etc.). (Tuominen; Talja & Savolainen, 2003, 562-563).

Literature:

Tuominen, K.; Talja, S. & Savolainen, R. (2003). Multiperspective Digital Libraries: The Implications of Constructionism for the Development of Digital Libraries. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(6), 561–569.