Communication is a core part of humanity; sharing information hasn’t been easy in the past but now. However, sharing information comes with its own issues. Let’s find out.
First of all, let’s get around the issue of “Information” itself, before treading the paths of information sharing. In the scope of cyber technology, the word information has to do with meaningful data. Data is any collection of facts and figures; numbers, letters, words or symbols.
Data may be collected objectively for the purpose of reference or analysis. Before data can qualify as information, it should always be processed to an extent where it makes sense to the reader.
Example: 1992.02.18 can be considered as data, and that is true because it is a collection of figures which is a fact with reference to the person or group that collected or created it. But what you understand when you see those figures is what is called information.
Is it an IP address? Is it somebody’s password? Or is it simply some digital code? Whichever is true of the data 1992.02.18 becomes information to the person reading it when they make a real sense of the meaning (understanding).
Well, 1992 (year), 02 (month), 18 (day) and the periods, well, not just periods, they’re called separators! So, we have the 18th day of February in the year 1992. What if I told you that’s my date of birth?
Hey! There you go, the data 1992.02.18 is now meaningful and it makes sense to you (useful), it’s a piece of information now, my date of birth.
We have a lot of information these days, and the place we get information from is the source. Facts obtained or learned about something or someone or a group is also another form of information. Some of the information we have may come from our personal facts and others are non-personal.
According to GDPR, “Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’), an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.”
(GDPR, page 33)
An example is the one mentioned in the paragraph above, date of birth. We also have personal information such as first name, middle and last names, mobile phone number, certificate number, examination total score for a term or year, and location data; street address, house address (number) among others.
For the purpose of this discussion, our use of the term “information” will focus more on public information sharing. In the scope of online communication, information is expressed either as the content of a message or through direct or indirect observation [Can you explain?].
Any idea that comes into one’s mind can be considered a message when adjudged in the right sense, and in that sense too, information is always conveyed as the content of a message.
In the cyber context, information is mostly passed as digital data usually for the purpose of analysis or communication (sharing between computers). Other forms of information include content messages, usually in the form of texts, media or simple and complex web-based files. We will now focus on the issue of information sharing.
Information Sharing, otherwise known as information exchange, can be explained as the intended act of making information possessed by one entity available to another entity. This involves the process of composing and exchanging as well as the availability of the use of any such information.
Information sharing may also include the transfer (forwarding) of any already made (received) information, and discussion of the information once shared.
Such information may be crafted as a presentation of data or multimedia content that is intended for private or public usage. Information sharing may be done by the means of electronic (for digital data) tools or any other means necessary for transporting data. In the past, information sharing was not easier than today, especially in the absence of modern technology that makes information dissemination very easier.
Another means by which information sharing has been made easier in our age is the audience base, unlike some many years back. In the past, sharing information with a large audience took much effort because of assembling, transportation and space. Being able to converge people from all walks of life was very difficult.
In other to get information across to a large audience, the informant needs to bring all the target group to a single environment or space and you will agree that this will be a tedious job.
This is because not everybody would like to be dragged to and stay in for the information, especially when they don’t know what information is about to be unfolded to them or simply because they may not like the content of the intended message.
What if the location to host the event is far from the comfort zone of the target audience? They may need to spend more money to travel to the point of convergence and that’s another setback.
Another, hindrance to information sharing in the past, is the space needed to host a large audience. Consider getting messages to a larger audience of about thousands or even millions.
How will you host the numbers for a single event just in the name of giving out information? Where will you accommodate all these people? This too was an issue in the history of information sharing in the past.
So considering all the factors above, it was very difficult to get information delivered to a larger audience, not until now. That said, it should be noted that information was delivered regardless of the factors hindering the same.
People were sent either in singles or groups to deliver messages to semi-larger audiences in market squares, churches, in the streets or at other places of local convenience.
As such, targeting a smaller group of people for a particular message was found to be relatively effective as they may carry the same, in time, to other people; their families and friends.
As highlighted above, drawing the line between the two is clear; sharing is easier today than before. As opposed to former ways of propagating news by means of word of mouth to letter writing, then the radios and TVs, to the internet, sharing is significantly in the process of simplification.
The World Wide Web brought about web pages, these aggregate into websites, now social media and mobile electronic messengers are also increasingly here.
The internet, being a larger network between computers all over the world, has drastically helped in the spread of all forms of information, and I mean all forms of information.
Maybe, you love to share information on the internet, but the issue here is, that we have information that is true and those that are not true, the latter, false or inaccurate information, can be classified into other categories.
And so, the main question gets drawn here, once again, “What about information sharing on the Internet?” Well, we’re in this together. First, let us group false information into a few categories. The main parent is Misinformation, with Disinformation as a child.
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