This week we discussed Claude Shannon and his concerns with how we maintain quality of sound, and that information does not regard the “meaning” of the message as to deliver it more effectively. The latter argument can be supported by redundancy in the English language, which has been gradually degraded in the modern age through texting and social media, shortening English words while conveying the same meaning. Phrases such as l8r, thru, thnx, even tru instead of true (just one letter longer) conveys the same message. This redundancy goes beyond the words but into the grammar of English language. Languages such as Arabic or Spanish are seen a blunt or commanding since a phrase in English will be shortened to convey the message more effectively, for example: In English a phrase may be “May I please have this item from the menu, thank you,” but in another language translate to “Give me *item name*”. It is not impolite, it is simply more effective. As stated earlier in the semester: information and meaning are two different things, and as argued in Monday’s class: information theory is indifferent to meaning.

In the following class we continued the discussion of medium and message, as well as whether or not information wants to be free. We learned that in the early stages of the web browser Berners Lee wanted the internet for sharing information, not to sell things. I wonder how he would feel about the craze of online shopping, as well as the concept of net neutrality. This leads to the question does information want to be free? Since it is only useful when it is shared I do believe information wants to be free. Those who produce information, however, do not want information to be free. Information is always owned, via citation or even cost. We are slowly losing our free access to information via libraries and bookstores. Soon these mediums will be entirely accessible via the internet, further enforcing the social class restriction on the exposure to information.