從人文看資訊之一：傳播、資訊與文明

Humanities and Information (I): Communication, Information and Culture

本文是為通識教育寫的一篇論說文，不是發表研究結果的論文。人類社會與文明的進展，資訊是不可或缺的，然而，目前凡是談到資訊，很少有從人文發展的角度來觀察資訊。本文以傳播與文化的關係為橋梁，談論資訊、媒介、表現系統等，與文化進程的關係。採取這樣的角度，一方面是擴大視野，以便能更廣泛、更深入的了解資訊這個概念，以及資訊是什麼。在糾正時下對資訊的一些誤解之時，資訊是如何生成的，也做了些說明，期使這樣討論，可以使人文與資訊的關係趨於明朗。依據聯合國對資訊業的界定，從事人文工作者，是資訊業者；本文對此亦略作說明。若從人文的肇始來看，人文、傳播和資訊源本是一家。資訊和傳播都是建立在表現系統和媒介物之上的。本文也略述了表現系統和媒介物對文明進程的影響。能量作為媒介物，是文明能進入數位時代的關鍵；其影響之大，從文明進程來看，不亞於文字的發明，是耀眼的里程碑。自從數位多媒體普及以來，新的表現系統層出不窮。新的表現系統對文明有什麼影響，目前還言之過早，然而其影響絕對不容忽視。本文對於資訊、傳播、表現系統和媒介物對文明進程的影響，因限於篇幅，未能詳盡。日後若有機會，當另撰文補足。

This is an essay for Humanities courses, not a research report. Communication and information are necessities for forming communities of any living creatures. Based on this statement, the relations among culture, communication and information are discussed. Besides, the Information workers defined by UNISCO have also been introduced to emphasis that any culture workers are information workers. Thus, the relation between information and culture can be revealed. As both communication and information are utilizing expression systems and media material to carry out their functions, their influences on culture development are briefly reviewed. Also, the ways of creating/generating information are presented for a deeper understanding of the characteristics of information.