Information and Power

This is a summary i wrote of a lecture held by Eleanor Jo Rodger at the College of Information at Florida State University November 5, 2005. The video Lecture can be found at http://ci.fsu.edu/go/research/archived_colloquia

There was a time, when more information meant more power. That is not the way the world works right now, it's no longer the case that the more information you have the more power you will get.

She uses this definition of power: "how to get people to do things". The type of information that is most relevant for a discussions about information and power is information seen as "knowing and learning".

So how can information be power? An example is taken from rural India. The villagers grow vegetables and have to sell them at the market in a village some distance away. But they have no idea of what the price of vegetables is at the market right now, and have to rely on the truck driver to be honest about the prices he can get at the market. The truck driver is in a position of power over the villages because he is in control of the information. BUT when the villagers get a mobile phone, they can call the village and find out the price of vegetables on the markets themselves.

Different types of learning and how they relate to power.

Obedience. This is a situation where powerful people control the learner. This type of learning can be found in religious cults, among battered wives, and in fundamentalism of all shades. Exposure to other views will generally be regarded as bad, and something that has to be punished. An example would be the situation when the art of book printing was invented. There was a lot of resistance and oppression because many of the people in power at the time were afraid of what would happen when people were given access to knowledge.

Received knowledge. This is the type of learning that many perceive as the classic school learning. The pupil must receive information, process it, and reproduce it when asked to do so. This type of learning is often perceived as negative among modern pedagogues, but that is not necessarily the case. In order to get power in this setting you have to control what information people have access to. What is available to be learned is always controlled by systems of power, and orthodox knowledge is a part of our education.

Experiential knowledge. This is where people look inside themselves to find knowledge, and it is also sometimes called subjective knowledge. This type of knowledge is often held up as an ideal, for example in the fairytale by H. C. Andersen about the "Emperor without clothes ", where only a little child dares to say that the emperor is naked.

But experiential knowledge can also be dangerous, particularly when somebody believes that "my truth should be everybody's truth". And it's easy to forget, and it's often forgot, that subjective knowledge always exist in a frame. This frame is created by powerful people or systems. Because of the dangers of subjective knowledge, it is important to check with other people if they share our view of a particular situation -- but here we run into a problem: most people only know people who are similar to themselves! Those people will be subject to the same frames of power that we are. An example of frames can be when an American soldier dies in Iraq. This fact can be framed in one of two ways, as a tragic consequence of war, or as a consequence of bad leadership.

Procedural knowing. In this type of knowledge there is a dialogue between internal knowledge and external facts. But there is usually a methodology that is used, and this methodology is owned by a system of power. In this situation the systems of power will work by deciding what is considered legitimate for the dialogue. An example is book discussion groups, which are thriving. People come to a book discussion group having already read the book, they have knowledge and somebody to interact with. Both voice and information. She recommends a book: Battle for God by Karen Armstrong because it is a good analysis of a clash of two fundamentalisms today, namely modernity and fundamentalist religion.

Constructed knowledge. All information is constructed, and the knower it is an intimate part of the known. People like this are passionate learners, and they are not scared by ambiguity. This is where power has the least amount of influence, because people see through people with agendas. An example would be The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It is a talk show that proudly feature "fake news". It says and show us that "all knowledge is constructed", but makes us laugh. Hannah Arendt is quoted as saying that making fun of power is the best way to disarm it.

Public libraries are embedded in political systems, because of the way they are funded. They get their money from the systems of power, and can therefore never be a seedbed for revolution. Unfortunately, since this speech was held to an audience of librarians.