Assignment Code: MLI-101/AST/TMA/Jul.2022-Jan.2023

Course Code: MLI-101

Assignment Name: Information, Communication and Society

Year: 2022-2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

1.1 Define information. Describe the factors contributing to the enhancement in the value of information. (10)

Ans) Information is an abstract term for anything that has the power to tell you something. At its most basic level, information is about how to understand what can be felt.

Factors contributing to the enhancement in the value of information

Research and Development: As a result of different research and development activities, new information and knowledge are made. More and more people are realising that information and knowledge, and how they can be used to turn non-resources into economic resources with value added, are the real drivers of material progress.

Fusion of Science and Technology: The mix of science and technology has started to change what technology is like. Technology has become the tool of rational action, and its routine use in many situations is becoming the most important part of running businesses and organisations today.

Science and Technology and Societal Information: Another thing that is making information more valuable is the growing focus on how science and technology can be used to improve social and economic conditions. Science, technology, and social information (STSI) are used to organise information systems and services today. This is true for all social and economic changes.

Information Technology:  Information technology is changing quickly. It has changed how information is processed, stored, shared, and distributed. It is the main tool for change in society and a major factor in it. Not only are these technologies developing quickly, but they are also merging and combining in ways that have never been seen before. This is giving growth and development everywhere a huge boost.

Information Demand: In the last few decades, everyone from regular people to experts and scholars has been asking for a lot more information. Access to information and its availability have become very important.

Power Shift: Information and knowledge are now a huge source of economic and political power because they are the main way people get wealth, political power, and more information. Today's information-rich countries are becoming even stronger than the colonial powers of the late 1800s and early 1900s because they know how to create new information and knowledge and use it to their advantage.

2.1 What do you understand by the concept of communication? Discuss the elements of communication process. (10)

Ans) Communication is the exchange of both spoken and unspoken messages. It has a sender, a receiver, and a way for the two to talk to each other. During the process of sending messages, something called a "barrier" can get in the way and make the message less clear.

Elements of Communication Process

Sender: The person who conveys his thoughts, message or ideas to the receiver is known as the sender. He is at the starting point of the communication system and represents the source of communication.

Message: The subject matter of communication is termed as messages. It includes ideas, feelings, suggestions, order, etc., which a sender wants to convey to the receiver.

Encoding: The process of converting messages into communication symbols, which may be understood by the receiver. It includes words, pictures, gestures, symbols, etc. Encoding translates the internal thought of the sender into a language which can be understandable.

Media: The path, channel or medium through which encoded message is transmitted to the receiver is known as media. It is the carrier of the message. It can be in written form, face to face, through telephone,  letter, internet, etc.

Decoding: The process of translating the encoded message into an effective language, which can be understood by the receiver is known as decoding. In this, the encoded symbols of the sender are converted.

Receiver: The person who receives the message of the sender is known as the receiver.

Feedback: In order to complete the process of communication, feedback is essential. The process of reversal of communication in which the receiver expresses his reaction to the sender of the message is known as feedback. Feedback ensures that the receiver has received and understood the message.

Noise: Any construction or hindrance which hampers the communication process is known as noise. The hindrance may be caused to the sender, message or receiver. It acts as a barrier to effective communication and because of this message is interpreted differently by the receiver. Disturbance in the telephone line, inattentive receiver, faulty decoding, poor internet connection, improper gestures and postures, etc., are some examples of noise.

3.1 Discuss the impact of IT on libraries, information systems and services. Justify how Indian society is drifting into an information and knowledge society. (10)

Ans) Impact of IT on libraries, information systems and services as follows:

Libraries

Libraries and other information centres have been meeting the information needs of education, research and development, government activities, business and industry, and the general public for a long time. Many people were able to get the information they needed because libraries had a lot of books and staff who could act quickly and plan ahead. But these traditional services haven't changed much and have mostly stayed the same. ICT has given libraries a new chance to change how they work and offer a customer-centered, active service to keep our institutions alive. The switch will be to electronic libraries, which have two main parts: library management systems and online search and retrieval systems like CD-ROMs and the Internet. Because of this new service environment, many people who have a stake in the information market will have to change what they do. How far we get toward the information society will depend on how we handle things like globalisation, standards, intellectual property rights, security, and bibliographic control.

Information Products and Services

Bibliographic work was a big part of information service in the 20th century. It made it possible for people to read books in almost every field. Some of the first places to offer these kinds of services were learned societies like the American Chemical Society and publishing houses that focus on secondary services like Wilson and Co.

With the help of the Internet and the World Wide Web, you can get almost any primary, secondary, or tertiary service quickly and cheaply today. Libraries and people who sell information have been using these facilities and focusing on customer-centered services. Knowledge management is a fairly new area of study, especially in the high-tech business world. In this kind of environment, a new kind of expert is starting to emerge: the knowledge worker.

Information Industry and Business

The information industry is a market place where hardware, software, and communication technologies come together with information content to make products and services that help people solve their problems better.

With its industrialised base, India is slowly moving toward becoming an information society. Here are some examples of things that show that we live in an information society: India has built a software industry that is liked by everyone, and it is now the part of our economy that is growing the fastest. India is expected to become a software superpower by 2008. It has a lot of talented people in this field. The exports of software are worth 50,000 billion US dollars, while the exports of manufactured and merchandise goods are only worth 45 million dollars. It is expected that both traditional services (like trade, transportation, tourism, financial, and community services) and IT-related services will drive India's economic growth. 52% of our people work in the Services sector, while only 26% work in agriculture and 22% work in industry, even though agriculture and industry are also important to us. This is almost a perfect example of how an information/knowledge society changes from a commodity-producing economy to a service economy.

ICT is used in almost every field in India, which shows how much it has grown there. Internet and Web technologies are being used more and more for things like train reservations, bank transactions, e-commerce, e-mail, and more. Businesses and industries that want to compete on a global scale are getting stronger by putting money into research and development (R&D) to learn new things. E-government is another way that the Central and State governments are trying to make government more open and easier for people to understand and interact with. There is no doubt that these efforts will grow in the future. The 10th Five Year Plan wants the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to grow by 8%, which is an ambitious goal given how things are going right now. Socioeconomic experts, on the other hand, are hopeful that the country's economy will grow steadily, which will improve the people's social and cultural lives.

4.1 What do your understand by information economy? Give your appreciation in the relevance and value of information/knowledge economy to library and information studies. (10)

Ans) Information economy is a type of economy that puts more value on informational activities and the information industry. Information is seen as a capital good in this type of economy. Marc Porat, a graduate student at Stanford University who later co-founded General Magic, came up with the term. Manuel Castells says that the information economy and the manufacturing economy are not incompatible with each other. He finds that countries like Germany and Japan have become more computerised in the way they make things. The information economy, on the other hand, is usually thought of as a "stage" or "phase" of an economy, coming after the stages of hunting, farming, and manufacturing. This way of thinking can be seen a lot in the information society, which is a related but broader concept.

Before I talked about the Indian economy, I talked about the information and knowledge economy in general. This gives you an idea of how Indian library and information systems and services should grow to meet users' information needs. IT has given us the tools we need to build a system and appropriate services with new ideas, as we've already said. Library automation, the creation of specialised databases, the opening of online database search services, the creation of consortia and library networks, electronic publishing, the creation of information retrieval thesauri, and software for one or more of the above products or services are all ways that information has been made easier to find and more widely available. In the 1980s, CD-ROM made it possible to master large databases and send them all over the world on stand-alone computers. The Internet, Web technologies, and all other supporting technologies have made it easier to get information from all over the world.

Libraries, information systems, and information services are not separate things. Most of the time, they are parts of other institutional structures. Information and knowledge are quickly changing the way people work everywhere, and libraries and other information systems can't stay the same. To meet different needs, it is also necessary to think outside the box and create new types of services. To get new skills, you will have to keep your professional knowledge up-to-date by learning and training all the time. This is a lifelong process. These are problems, but they are also chances to make things better.

People think that information and knowledge are the most important resources for a country's growth and development because of how valuable and important they are. Library and information professionals have always been linked to information and knowledge services. Now, they have more chances to work on developing new and innovative services to stay competitive in the job market.

5.0 Write short notes on any two of the following: (10)

a) Data, Information and Knowledge

Ans) Data, information, knowledge, and wisdom are all things that can be learned and improved in the mind. In terms of how useful and important they are, they are not the same. Instead, Data, Information, and Knowledge are ranked from least valuable to most valuable, with Data being the least valuable and Wisdom being the most valuable. When put together, these ideas are valuable intellectual assets that make up the most valuable human capital in all processes of development.

Data is usually a fact about a certain activity that was seen and gathered through a systematic survey or study. For example, social data about city life and public services, government statistics about trade, excise duties, taxes, etc., census figures on the size of the population, records of the results of scientific experiments, and similar things. These are useful for studies on things that are related to these data. These data are analysed and put together to come up with indicators, make projections, and draw valid conclusions about any event or activity, etc.

b) Information Policy

Ans) Information Policy means different things to different people who work with information in different ways. The different meanings have mostly come about because different groups have different ideas about what information and policy mean and how far they go. Information policy is about how to collect, store, share, and provide products and services that meet the needs of users. For library and information professionals, this includes the contents of documents that contain all kinds of information, including text, images, sounds, microforms, electronic information, and digital information.

When researchers and scholars think about information policy, they think about the data and information they create, share, and communicate in different ways and contexts, as well as the information support facilities they need to do their own research and development. The computer and telecommunications group would think that information policy is about hardware, software, information processing packages, message transmission, communication networks, and other similar things.