i202 Fall 2009 School of Information, UC Berkeley

During L13, as part of our review, we talked more about separating the content from the presentation. I posed the question that if you consider the statement that “Meaning is Use” (in terms of use equating to the presentation), does that mean that content alone is meaningless? Well, this concept has been percolating in my brain over the last few days and I think I’ve concluded that the answer to that question is: Yes.

Here are some examples in support of my assertion that content is meaningless:

Example #1 – Raw Data

A student, Joe, is given a score of 5 on an assignment. What does that number mean? How does it affect Joe’s grade in the class? His GPA? In order to assign meaning to the number 5, Joe has to tie it to other data, such as the total points available in the class to figure out his grade and then to his grade points and credits to figure out his GPA. Data like scores, grade points, and credits are arbitrary numbers when considered alone but when presented together, create meaning for Joe and his academic standing.

Data (content) + Calculation (presentation) = Meaning

Example #2 – Text Blob

If you take a random paragraph from any book, remove it from its presentation of book title, author, page number, etc, you basically have a text blob. The text blob would be meaningless to anyone reading it unless they had a frame of reference (i.e. they had read the book it came from or knew the author or subject). In this case, a person’s own knowledge would serve as the presentation to assign meaning to the text blob.

Text Blob (content) + Frame (presentation) = Meaning

I’d love to hear anyone else’s opinion on the subject…