Why this matters
Your phone shows you a number, a chart, and a weather forecast, and they are not the same kind of thing. The very first idea in this subject is telling data, information, and knowledge apart. Get this, and the rest of the course has solid ground.
The idea
- Data is raw facts: numbers, characters, or symbols (e.g. today's temperature is 31°C).
- Information is data that means something to whoever receives it (e.g. "it is hotter than yesterday"). Information has no physical form, and its value depends on the recipient.
- Knowledge is information that has been analyzed and organized to solve a problem (e.g. a weather forecast built from years of records).
Information has three characteristics you should remember: persistence (once created it can't be fully erased), reproducibility (it is easily copied), and propagation (it spreads easily, especially through mass media and the internet).
Picture it
flowchart LR A[Data: raw facts, numbers, symbols] --> B[Information: meaning for the recipient] B --> C[Knowledge: analyzed and organized to solve a problem]
Worked example
A school records the temperature and humidity every day.
- The recorded values (31°C, 60%) are data.
- "This week is more humid than last week," worked out from those values, is information.
- "On humid days the lab computers overheat, so run the AC from 11am," learned from many weeks of analysis, is knowledge.
Media is how information travels. There are three kinds: expression media (text, images, audio, video), transmission media (television, radio, newspapers, the internet), and recording media (paper, USB drives, cloud storage). Because anyone can publish, you need media literacy, the skill of judging how accurate and reliable a source really is.
Your turn
Try the practice questions for this lesson. Sort examples into data, information, and knowledge, and match each example to the right kind of media.
Recap
- Data → information → knowledge is a ladder from raw facts to problem-solving.
- Information has no form; it is persistent, reproducible, and easily spread.
- Media expresses, transmits, or records information; media literacy keeps you safe.