This book includes a provocative collection of instructive, informative and inclusive topics of theories of information through an introduction and 11 chapters. The book attempts to cover a vast range of theories of information, communication and knowledge. It is the result of a great project which is funded by the French Institute of Information and Communication Sciences on the epistemology of information and communication

Elaheh Hossseini

Saeed Rezaei Sharifabadi

Webology

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1 http://www.webology.org/2016/v13n1/bookreview26.pdfWebology, Volume 13, Number 1, June, 2016Home Table of Contents Titles & Subject Index Authors IndexBook ReviewTheories of Information, Communication and Knowledge: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Ibekwe-SanJuan, Fidelia, Dousa, Thomas M (Eds.). London, UK: Springer, 2014. 380 pp. $179.00 (hardcover),$139.00 (e-book).  ISBN 978-94-007-6973-1.This book includes a provocative collection of instructive, informative and inclusive topics oftheories of information through an introduction and 11 chapters. The book attempts to cover avast range of theories of information, communication and knowledge. It is the result of a greatproject which is funded by the French Institute of Information and Communication Sciences onthe epistemology of information and communication.Introduction is written by editors accompanied with detailed analytical overview. Useful featuresof structure of the book induced which is divided into 3 different clusters (p.2) namelytransdisciplinary or metadisciplinary approaches, theories of information and information scienceand ultimately information operationalized.In chapter 2, Søren Brier tries to set a general theory of information through theory ofcybersemiotics from a semiotic, linguistic, and language philosophy viewpoints The proposedtheory is depicted by referring to thermodynamic-cybernetic type of theory of information, thequantum mechanical physicalist information theory, Machlup’s theory of information as well astechno-science paradigms (pan-computational and pan- informational). In addition, informationas part of general system theory and also as part of the system theoretical autopoietic view ofcommunication is explained deeply relying on Luhmann’s revolutionary idea. Finally,cybersemiotic as a new way of combining the natural, technical, life and social sciences withhumanities is expressed carefully within a transdisciplinary paradigm of information, cognitionand communication. Moreover, cybersemiotics is investigated detailed by Peirce’stransdisciplinary semiotically-based information theory. Brier argues that all mentioned aspectsmust be integrated into a transdisciplinary framework and it is beyond pierce’s idea that consistson both objective and the prior knowledge of interpreter.Wolfgang Hofkirchner surveyed epistemology and social information through unified theory ofinformation (UFI) framework in chapter 3. His idea is surrounded by social information thatmeans any informative facts including human being. He focuses on the methodology of socialinformation studies in a POE (Praxio-Onto-Epistemology) context. He argues that methodologyshould provide the grounds for transdisciplinary approaches toward social information with2 http://www.webology.org/2016/v13n1/bookreview26.pdfconfirmation on integrativistic thinking to integrate “soft” science and “hard” science. Theepistemology of the proposed UTI framework undertakes the criticism of deductivism, as well asthe non-deductivism to cope with qualitative leaps. Moreover, it is discussed that thephilosophical architecture of praxeology, ontology, and epistemology is able to reconstructsemiotics as an architecture of pragmatics, semantics, and syntactics.In chapter 4, perception and testimony are elaborated by Luciano Floridi. He tries to develop aPhilosophical account of semantic information via metadisciplinary framework. In addition,Floridi considers answering two prominent questions. The first, if knowledge is accountedinformation, how are we supposed to understand perceptual knowledge and knowledge bytestimony? The second, if perception and testimony are data providers, how are we supposed tounderstand the semantic value of such data? Moreover, the first and the second potentialdifficulties are discussed that affects (quantitative and qualitative) analyzing knowledge asaccounted information. The constructionist interpretation of perception and testimony aredepicted and modeled upon Shannon’s information-theoretical model of communication as aframework .Ultimately, Floridi believes that man’s ontology and cognitive system is totallysemantic, so when a man is informed about the world would be able to know and account forsuch information as well. Critically, the chapter needs more explanation about epistemic agent.In a latter chapter (chapter 5), contribution of Winfried Nöth is to focus on humancommunication from the semiotic perspective. In his idea, semiotics has been divided intosemiotics of communication and signification. Theories of human communication are developedby referring to communication models of founding fathers of modern semiotics namelyFerdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) and Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914) (N oth2011). In thefollowing, the importance roles of congruence, commonage and the inscrutability of thecommunicator’s mind are explained. In addition, functional models of semiotics ofcommunications such as Eric Buyssens (1900–2000), Luis Prieto (1926–1996) as well as RomanJakobson (1896–1982) are overviewed by details. Successively, models of communication rootedin cybernetics and information theory like Umberto Eco’s theory and also Yuri M. Lotman(1922–1993) are discussed by focusing on potential of various codes (extra coding, overcodingand undercoding) and effect of cultural semiotic models as well as social background ofinterpreter of a signs. Finally, the idea of Algirdas Greimas (1917–1992) as semiotic action withits modalities and enunciation is expressed to make prominent the intention of interpreters inconveying the knowledge to others. As conclusion, Nöth focuses on incompatibility anddivergence of the mentioned models and a common proclivity of Shannon and Weaver’smechanistic view of communication.In chapter 6, gaps between various concepts of information in 5 varied domains are developed infurther details. Robinson and Bawden are inspired to answer to the question of John Wheeler“what makes meaning?” through the interpretations. The concept of “information” in different3 http://www.webology.org/2016/v13n1/bookreview26.pdfdomains of technological, physical, biological, social and philosophical is pointed out andcompared. It causes to recognize a prominent guide to justify differences and gaps between them.The advantage of the writing style of the chapter is to offer more concrete resources for each fieldas well as the history of their evolution. Furthermore, the discontinuity between theobjective/quantitative/physical and subjective/qualitative/semantic families of informationconcepts is utilized to identify and bridge the gaps. Authors reassure readers to consider more tophysical and biological accounts of information as a vital concept on the contrary of Brier’s idea.Jonathan Furner carefully describes the concept of “information without information studies” inchapter 7. He aims to clarify some vague dimensions about the nature of the relationships amongvarious concepts of information as the same. He also tries to develop a framework in order todefine the range of ontological possibilities for things that have been called “information” whichoffered by philosopher Jonathan Lowe’s (2006) ontology. The four-category ontology includestwo-fold distinctions between substance and property and type and instance on the other as aframework. Moreover, distinguishing between information and informativeness can be possiblerespectively through determining as qua substance or object and also qua property or mode on theother. In addition, Probability-theoretical concepts of information and informativeness isformulated and elaborated as surprisal, entropy, conditional entropy as well as mutualinformation. As a deep probing, concept of information from the perspective of Anatoly Rapoport(1955), Tom Stonier (1986) and also Agn`es Lagache (1997) as well as special issues of twojournals of “information” and “TripleC” are surveyed.  The upshot, Furner recommend the usageof ontology as a potentially productive means of identifying hitherto-unexplored possibilities.Therefore, he emphasize that  information without information studies—is needlesslyimpoverished, not least on account of the range of ontological possibilities that it misses.Chapter 8 entitled “Epistemological Challenges for Information Science: ConstructingInformation” written by Ian Cornelius focus on proposing a normative theory of information.Actually, a theory of knowledge that supports a theory of action is offered and explained. On theother hand, a theory of action presupposes a theory of knowledge. Defining what information is(WII) is not in his boundaries of discussion. On his view most crucially, information isconstructed within the context of a given social practice. He suggests constructivist account ofinformation accompanied with social practice empowers LIS as an academic major withscientific approach.  By and large, Cornelius believes the world is itself a constructed concept,therefore, a normative theory of action and proposed constructive theory of knowledge sustainthe scientific approaches to the epistemology of LIS as well as make a more coherent connectionbetween information and LIS thought and actions.Birger Hjørland analyzes various levels of disagreements in the field of information science andits core concepts as an academic field within chapter 9. He elaborates different conceptualizationsand their interrelatedness of the field as historically borne through a well-trodden discussion.4 http://www.webology.org/2016/v13n1/bookreview26.pdfMore than 10 various designations of LIS discipline are reviewed holistically. In the following,the impact of ICT on the major and related concepts are discussed. Additionally, Hjørlandconfirms that the level of disciplinary “paradigms” or “metatheories” are as the most radical toset up epistemological assumptions about choosing an approach to resolve mentioned issues.Moreover, he accentuates that the main problem is lack of sufficiently strong centripetal forceskeeping the field together integratively, so that a greater amount of theoretical coherence isoffered to survive the field and happened centrifugal. Critically, explanation by details aboutmentioned paradigms and their impacts was more valuable.In the 10th chapter, Leleu-Merviel outlined visual information construing. The chapter aims topropose a model of the emergence of meaning and also sense-making as an active process. Theinformational process is pointed out by referring to Floridi’s Diaphoric Definition of Data (DDD)and Bates’s definition by pattern through 4 postulates. In the idea of Merviel, “lictional binding”is interpreted as relations, links, or connections within a higher level of coherence that conjoinelements of data with one another in order to  further human’s understanding of information. Afamous image of “duck-rabbit” is depicted to talk about bistability as a revealer of mediatingpatterns. In addition, its function is restricted by an individual’s “horizon of relevance”. In short,it indicates personal viewpoint and construction, knowledge and also socio-cultural experience asa frame of information construing. On the other, image is supposed as signs by regarding tocoalescence and semiotic features to induce meaning through interpreting and cognitive processfor socially shared meanings, purely conventional, culturally assigned and innovativeunderstanding to make it more communicable. Critically, more evidence and description aboutthe approach during the chapter would be more fruitful and preferable.Users’ informational constructs within a case study is investigated in chapter 11 by MichelLabour. The chapter aims to infer how users’ informational constructs of influence a situationalknowledge building process through the axiomatico-inductive approach. The role of salient datain a communicational situation and also constraining affordances on a social actor’s ability tomake sense of informational constructs is explicated. Besides, information as a social sciencephenomenon and epistemological construct via GDI framework and semantic information ofFloridi, George Kelly, Marcia Bates, Dervin as well as Bateson are elucidated explanatory. Inlight of this, during the case study, an interview template is developed for persons watching thesnippet on which to document their information constructs via the triadic grid to comprehendhow people make sense of visual documents. In conclusion, further research on the role ofinformational constructs is suggested to develop the theoretical framework.In the last chapter, textual information, documentary languages, and information analysis areexplained as radical discussions by Thomas M. Dousa. Therefore, Kaiser’s theory and method ofsystematic indexing is utilized to talk more deeply for the analysis of textual documents.Considerably, Kaiser’s view on textual information with both epistemological and an ontological5 http://www.webology.org/2016/v13n1/bookreview26.pdfdimensions are argued. Thoroughgoing, the idea of textual information as thing, as well as itsbearing on his understanding of textual information are elaborated. Demarcation of informationunits both objectivity and interpretation in Kaiser’s perspective is investigated too. So that, threecategories of terms for concretes, countries, and processes to constitute the basic building blocksof textual information and the role of interpretation are simplified. The most positive point of thechapter is instructive and enlightening footnotes.At the end, we would like to thank the author for writing such an instructive and revealing book.The mentioned 11 studies are as brief but informative part of the expansive domain of theconcept of information and its relation to theories of knowledge and communication. The mostpositive point of the book is multidisciplinary discovery of deep perception of information &knowledge from a various points of disciplines via pluralism approach integratively. So diversebackgrounds and definitions of knowledge theories from various authors and its effecting onepistemology of knowledge society provide a rich and valuable content with multidisciplinaryapproach through co-extensive chapters. In addition, prominent and rich used resources are asholistic underpinning in the field of concept of information. As a result, the book is highlyrecommended to experts of the realm of   information science, communication, library science,information technology, management of ICT in order to study and utilize in academic teachingparticularly for master and Ph.D. students as an amenable and compelling source. It is worthmentioning that the written language on some chapters are not easy to understand on the firstreading, but due to full-fledged content it is eminently suggested by reviewers to use as aclassmate text by academics and lecturers.Elaheh HossseiniPh.D. Candidate, Department of Knowledge andInformation Science, Faculty of Psychology andEducational Sciences, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.Member of Young Researchers' Club, Islamic AzadUniversity, South Branch, Tehran, Iran.E-mail: e.hosseini (at) alzahra.ac.irSaeed Rezaei SharifabadiProfessor, Dean Faculty of Education and Psychology,Department of Knowledge and Information Science,Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.E-mail: srezaei (at) alzahra.ac.irBibliographic information of this book review for citing:Hosseini, Elaheh, & Rezaei Sharifabadi, Saeed (2016). "Review of: Ibekwe-SanJuan, Fidelia, Dousa, Thomas M.(Eds.), Theories of information, communication and knowledge: A multidisciplinary approach.  London: Springer,2014. Webology, 13 (1), Book Review 26. Available at: http://www.webology.org/2016/v13n1/bookreview26.pdfCopyright © 2016, Elaheh Hosseini and Saeed Rezaei Sharifabadi.

Book Review: Theories of Information, Communication and Knowledge: A Multidisciplinary Approach

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Book Review: Theories of Information, Communication and Knowledge: A Multidisciplinary Approach

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