Valuing and representing information: the paradox of undervaluing information and overvaluing information producers

  • Authors:

  • Maria Sakalaki;Smaragda Kazi

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Socialand Political Sciences, Athens, Greece;Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Socialand Political Sciences, Athens, Greece

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Information Science
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Information's increasing importance in contemporary societies raises questions concerning laymen's valuation of information and of professionals producing information. The main hypotheses were: (a) potential sellers will underestimate information's value compared to that of material goods; (b) when potential buyers' involvement is high (that is high investment and high risk), sellers will demand even lower prices for information; (c) some important current functions and meanings of information are not assimilated in social representations of information; (d) by contrast, participants must overvalue the remuneration of professionals producing pure information (invention) compared to those who apply this information to produce material goods. An experimental study confirmed hypotheses (a) and (b). A second study to investigate the structure of information's social representations showed that the representation's central core is mainly composed of categories referring to traditional media, functions and technologies; contemporary functions and technologies are less frequent or absent. A third experimental study confirmed hypothesis (d).