Information Theory

Shannon and Weaver's Information Theory applies to many real life situations. The theory explains the relationship between information and noise. Noise is anything that hinders the flow of information, it can be visual, physical, or mental. The purpose of most conversations and media productions is to produce information with as little noise as possible. Information can be looked at in a couple of different ways. It can be anything that matters or makes a difference, or it can refer to the opportunity to reduce uncertainty.

A few weeks ago I was watching T.V. when the local carrier broke in with one of those special reports. The report was alerting viewers of a possible severe storm that had the potential to cause problems. The woman who was broadcasting the message was standing outside in the storm that was headed toward the viewing audience. The background consisted of cars driving slowly down the highway, lots of snow, and gusty winds. The woman was the information source because she was passing along information to whoever was watching that particular station. The channel or transmitter was some type of satellite that took the image from where the report was taking place to the individual television sets. The noise in this situation ranged from the woman's hair blowing around to my housemates running arund yelling and screaming. When her hair was blowing around I focused on her hair more than what she was saying. My housemates made it difficult for me to hear my television set by yelling and screaming. Other factors of noise were the slow driving cars in the background and the gusts of wind that blew across the mic and distorted the reporter's voice. To combat noise, the reporter repeated herself time and again which made it easier to understand what she was saying. Another technique used to combat noise was a disclaimer describing the weather that ran across the bottom of the screen after the report was over.

One of the main criticisms of this theory is its tendency to ignore the human factor in communication. Shannon and Weaver's model reduces the people on the destination end of the message to bodies that have no chance to respond or offer feedback to a message. This applies to the above example. The people watching the message are part of a one way communication system and have no chance to respond to the message in such a way that it will have an impact. The sent message would be much easier to understand if people were given the opportunity to ask questions and reduce uncertainty bit by bit. How big is the storm? Is the storm heading in my direction? What time will the storm hit my area of town? How much accumulation do you expect? All of these questions will provide information when answered, thus reducing uncertainty.

There are endless examples of how the Information Theory applies to everyday occurrances. Information never stops, it comes and goes in many forms. It is important to realize that the same is true for noise. Because noise is constant, the best way to ensure that information is passed on clearly is through repetition and redundancy.

In the above page I talked about noise and how people perceive the same message in a different ways. In the link below Tracie Jordan talks about how humans act toward what they see based on the meaning they assign to whatever it is they see. To check out Tracie's Application click here.

To check out your weather click here

Information Theory Home Page

This page was last updated by Kevin Huster 2/3/00