Evaluating Information: A Stone Age perspective on the Internet
By: A.D. Madden, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK
& J. Palimi, School of Business Administration, University of Papua New Guinea, P O Box 320, National Capital District, Papua New Guinea
Introduction
Even enthusiastic supporters of the Internet will acknowledge the fact that most of the material to which it gives access is of little value to anyone, and merely exacerbates the problems of searching with a view to retrieving useful information. The need to be able to evaluate information retrieved from the Internet is indisputable. Not only do students lack the necessary skills, but so too do their teachers (Madden et al, in prep).
This paper has two purposes. Firstly, it argues that some of the problems which users of the Internet have in evaluating the information they access, arise because they apply an inappropriate model. They regard Internet sites in the same way as they regard older, more established textual information sources. Secondly it argues that the means of information evaluation applied by societies without access to written information, are relevant to the problem of evaluating information on the Internet. One such society, the Kope tribe of Papua New Guinea, is considered as an example.
The reliability of text
Although people have questioned the benefits of writing (eg, Plato – ref), few would dispute that its impact on human culture has been profound. In its earliest forms, writing was a perfect witness: it was a memory that did not fade. Even today, over five thousand years after their creation, records of transactions can be read (Schmandt-Besserat, 1997). Without those records, the different interests of the transacting parties would have been represented by their own memories and the memories of witnesses, all of which would have been subject to change and to bias. Writing however, not only offered a way of preserving transactions and accounts. By 2900 BC, it had developed to a level where it could also provide a means of recording laws, histories and legends (Schmandt-Besserat, 1997:98). Once so preserved, they became canon. They became the standard against which all other versions of histories and legends could be compared. Documents could be copied and distributed around a realm and would provide fixed reference points.
- Groups of people, making
- "parallel use of texts, both to structure the internal behaviour of the groups’ members and to provide solidarity against the outside world"
are described by Stock (1983:90), as ‘textual communities’. Most obviously today, they include adherents to the world’s major religions; but legal codes, written constitutions, bodies of rules, and the standard texts of many academic disciplines, produce other examples of textual communities.
Until relatively recently however, literacy was uncommon. Those able to understand the written word were privileged and were respected accordingly. For example, in Ireland in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, the penalty for killing a scribe was equal to the punishment for killing a bishop (Thomas, 1975, cited in Manguel, 1994:181). Throughout most of history therefore, documents have been produced by an elite minority of writers for an elite minority of readers.
The advent of printing provided increased opportunities for reading, but the barriers to publication were formidable. Usually, to get into print, a person had to be talented, well-educated, wealthy, or well-connected; but ideally all four. Furthermore, a published work generally represented the efforts of a community, usually comprising not only the author, but also editors and financiers. Consequently, it was in the interests of several people to ensure that the work could be defended. Published documents therefore, were usually reliable at the time of going to press.
Online Publishing
The release of the World Wide Web in 1991 (Berners-Lee, 1999) made it possible to disseminate documents among a potential readership which rapidly grew into hundreds of millions. Previously, as has been discussed, the opportunities for reaching such a readership were limited to very few people.
Traditionally, students were not taught to question the validity of texts until they reached college. Even then they would have come to any text with the implicit assumption that people aside from the author attributed some value to the contents. Clearly, on the Internet, this is untrue.
In 1998, Jonathan Miller, described the Internet as the parish pump of the global village "ceaselessly pumping drivel into an ocean of sludge", and complained that "separating the mendacious from the veracious is rapidly becoming impossible."
The metaphor, though intended to be critical, is not inappropriate. The Internet is undoubtedly a place where members of the ‘on-line’ community come to gossip, though the exchanges are asynchronous monologues rather than any sort of discussion. The question that the rest of this paper seeks to address is: how would information on the Internet be assessed by people who had no prior conceptions about the reliability of text-based information sources?
There are few societies today in which a substantial number of members grew up without an awareness of writing. The Kope tribe, of which Joe Palimi (one of this paper’s co-authors) is a member, is one such society. Joe is part of the first generation of his tribe to acquire a university education. This paper arose from discussions that took place between the authors while Joe was working for an MBA at the University of Sheffield.
Structures of Primitive Communities
Anthropologists describe the most primitive unit of society as a band. Bands comprise around 25 to 100 members: they are usually hunter-gatherers and tend to be extended families. Bands are nomadic, without hierarchy, and none of their members has a specialized role.
In regions where there is a rich supply of food, or where agriculture has begun to develop, bands may merge to form tribes. These are substantially larger bodies of people, sharing the same language, and usually with fixed villages. As with bands, there are no specialized roles. There is a rudimentary hierarchy however (Service, 1971).
The Kope of Papua New Guinea
The Kope (pronounced Kopi) is a tribe of ten to fifteen thousand Melpa-speaking Melanesians based in the Western Highlands Province in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Traditionally, the Kope were hunters and subsistence farmers, with a technology based on tools made from materials derived from plants, animals and stones.
Kope clans comprise a number of settlements based on extended families. Polygamy was traditionally a common practice, so extended families can be very large. Family settlements may be several hundred metres apart, but there is always a central meeting house called the manga rapa or round house. This is the permanent residence of the clan leader, but is frequented by other clansmen. Leadership is based on merit rather than inheritance, but being descended from a tribal leader increases a tribesman’s chance of becoming a leader in his own right.
The Kope’s first contact with Western culture was in 1930 when some Australian prospectors wandered into their territory (Connolly & Anderson, 1987). The prospectors, the Leahy (pronounced lay) brothers, were the first white people the Kope had seen. Initially the pale visitors were thought to be ghosts; but after the Kope had observed them long enough to conclude that the men were human, they made themselves known.
Several members of the tribe who were children at the time of this meeting are still alive. Given the inaccessibility of the Western Highlands Province, contact with Western society remained intermittent until after World War Two, when missionaries began to arrive. As a result, the tribe's culture remained largely unaffected until the late 1940s.
Information flows within communities
Even in a highly literate society, people seeking information will generally ask the advice of others before seeking information from a written source (eg Ellis, 1989 and Ellis et al, 1993). However, in a society in which specialization is the norm, and all members belong both to geographic communities and to communities of interest, it can be hard to disentangle the various flows of information. It is instructive therefore, to consider information flow within comparatively unsophisticated societies such as those of the Kope.
Information sources in the Kope tribe
Tribal information falls into two main categories:
- Cultural information, such as tribal history and beliefs. Like all other communities, the Kope
are interested in news and gossip; and story-telling plays a significant part in their culture. However, traditionally, one of the more serious purposes of story telling is the preservation of the tribe’s history, which was remembered and passed on from generation to generation.
- Practical skills, including hunting, housebuilding, agronomy.
Before their contact with Western culture, the Kope were, of necessity, generalists. The clan groups were too small to support specialists, so all the skills required for survival had to be acquired by all members of the tribe. Since plant and animal materials were commonly used, not only for food, but for building and tool-making, the Kope have a very detailed knowledge of the local flora and fauna and their uses. Such an in-depth applied knowledge of botany and zoology amongst all members of a primitive society seems widespread. Lévi-Strauss (ch1) cites numerous incidences of Western biologists being astounded by the ability of native peoples to classify and identify large numbers of indigenous organisms.
Because the Kope were generalists and needed to be capable of performing all the tasks required for tribal life, they were well placed to appreciate when another member of the tribe was skilled in a particular task.
Tribal politics
Leadership amongst the Kope has never been hereditary: leaders were chosen on merit. The tight network of family connections helped to make the biases and motivations of aspiring leaders common knowledge, and their skills would have been on display to all.
The main role of the tribal leader was to represent his tribe in inter-tribal negotiations. In consequence, the most important skill for a chief was oratory. He would need to be well versed in local history and politics, but not only was his knowledge important, so too was the skill with which he presented it.
Strathern (1984) contrasts this with the practice in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where leadership was tied up with prowess in warfare, rather than leadership through trading and exchange. As a result, where the hierarchies in the Eastern Highlands were destroyed by contact with Europeans, those in the Western Highlands were
- "…in a sense, enhanced… The oral history of politics was preserved, developed, and constantly brought into play." p23
It could be argued that a key difference between the cultures of the Eastern and Western Highlands was that, while the Eastern tribes prized military prowess, their Western counterparts recognized the value of knowledge and information.
Presentation of information
Because the tribe’s history and politics were widely known, a leader was judged, not by the information he gave, but by the way in which it was presented. Like all politicians, Kope orators make considerable use of wit, metaphor and simile, allowing them to present information in a way that suits their case, while being entertaining.
Such use of imagery in presenting information helps to place it in a context selected by the presenter. Use of inappropriate imagery however, makes the message uninformative. As an example of this, the first missionaries to visit the Kope had considerable difficulty in explaining their beliefs to a people who had never had sheep. The idea of ‘The Lamb of God’ proved to be more confusing than enlightening.
Initiation and religion
Although the Kope no longer practice initiation ceremonies, many neighbouring tribes still do. Such ceremonies usually involve teaching the initiates necessary survival skills and testing their knowledge of the tribe’s history, culture and religion.
Under pressure from missionaries, many indigenous religions in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea were discouraged (Strathern, 1984). Prior to the arrival of the missionaries however, the Kope did have a well-established religion. As with other aspects of Kope culture however, priesthood was not hereditary. Some people tended to be recognized as more holy than others and were better at performing religious rites. Such people became de facto priests. They could, and did, teach their skills to anybody who was interested.
The various information sources and flows discussed above can be summarized by arguing that there are four information roles within the Kope community, which are as follows:
- Induction
- Dissemination
- Representation
- Interpretation
It should be remembered that this analysis is based on the practices of one tribe. Care should be taken when generalizing therefore. Nevertheless, it is interesting to consider how these roles may be performed in the developed world
In developed societies, it could be argued, they are now being performed by specialists. An attempt is made below to relate specialisms roles to the four information roles described above.
Induction
The relative simplicity of Kope society ensures that most members can perform nearly all the tasks required by those societies, and are therefore capable of evaluating information related to those tasks. However, at some stage, Kope need to learn the skills associated with those tasks. Similarly, they need to learn their society’s history in order to understand the factors that have shaped their culture.
Although the Kope do not have a specific initiation ceremony, their children have to be trained. Practical skills are taught by parents, while history is taught to Kope children as stories told by parents or elders.
Teachers, trainers and lecturers are now responsible for inductions into one or more communities. School children are being initiated into the adult community of which their teachers are a part. University students, particularly those doing vocational courses, are being initiated into professional communities of which, ideally, their lecturers are a part.
DisseminationStory telling has traditionally been the most popular way of disseminating information amongst the Kope. People returning from trading expeditions or visits to other tribes were traditionally the main source of news and new tales.
Full-time disseminators now exist in various forms: most obviously as journalists. In their most conspicuous manifestations, journalists perform the same role as the Kope travellers in bringing home tales of events in other parts of the world. Trade journalists perform a similar role for their communities of interest, by informing them of developments that have taken place in other parts of the community.
Representation
Where the interests of a community are at stake or can be furthered, there is likely to be a need for representation. So, with the Kope for instance, elders represented the tribe in trade missions and other negotiations.
As has been implied, a community will evaluate information according to criteria determined by its requirements and perceptions. Representatives of another community will therefore be more effective if they have an understanding of the requirements and perceptions of the host community when presenting their case. Facility with language then becomes invaluable in shaping a message to suit those requirements and perceptions.
The most obvious examples of community representatives in a developed society are politicians or councillors. These can easily be related to the type of community representative seen in the Kope. Other representatives might include union leaders and the committees of professional bodies.
Interpretation
For most of their history, it was essential for survival that the Kopi could, by examination, derive information concerning the state of their crops and livestock. Similarly, to hunt successfully, they needed to derive information about the nature, availability, and location of prey through observation.
Interpretation is now the full-time occupation of many, including, for example, researchers, scientists, and detectives. Many professional interpreters, such as doctors and agronomists have obvious equivalents in pre-literate societies.
Information roles and the Internet
In evaluating a site on the World Wide Web, or any other part of the Internet, one of the clearest indicators of quality is the nature of the organization that hosts the site. However, further insight can be gained by relating the site to the four information roles described above. By so doing, some idea can be gained of the author’s intentions in producing the site.
Induction
Sites designed to induct readers are likely to be non-technical, with relevant technical terms defined. They will give explanations of rules, concepts and principles, and will summarize relevant histories.
Representation Sites produced to represent an interest or interests will tend to be the most sophisticated in design, and will provide clear information about aims and objectives.
Dissemination If the site is disseminating information around a community of interest, it will probably be specialized, with contents that are presented as facts or narrative.
Interpretation Such sites will invariably be specialized. Data, events, developments etc will be discussed and arguments presented. The reader will be assumed to have expert knowledge.
Combined roles Clearly, a site may fulfil more than one of the above information roles, but some combinations are more likely than others. Sites designed to induct the reader and to represent the interests of a community are common. It would be surprising though, to find a site that was both inductive and interpretive.
As has been stated, this paper has two purposes. Firstly, it is argues that the respect in which text has long been held adversely affects the way in which the Internet is used. Secondly, it identifies a set of information roles that are present in at least one tribal society, and argues that these can be of value when evaluating documents on the Internet.
These arguments prompt an interesting observation. As was noted earlier, text became widely used because it was more reliable than human memory. Part of the reason for its reliability was the fact that textual records could not easily be altered without leaving a trace of tampering. This was particularly true after the development of printing, when it would have been necessary to alter large numbers of documents in order to conceal discrepancies. Members of a textual community could therefore refer to a section of a document and be certain that other members, separated by geography or time, could read what was being referred to.
The ease with which electronic documents can be changed however, makes such assurance impossible in many cases. An Internet document can be changed on the server without warning. Two readers may view completely different documents, but believe them to be the same.
There has been much debate about the advantages of the printed word over the electronic one. Most of these have focussed on the convenience of books:
-
"humankind, being what it is, will always want to curl up with a good book—not a laptop" (Herring, 2001).
Such advantages are likely to disappear in time, as hardware becomes lighter and more versatile. What should not be forgotten however, is the benefit of print as a fixed memory. If this advantage is ignored, there is the risk of ending up with a hi-tech information system that reproduces the disadvantages of the oral tradition.
- ©: Copyright 2002
By: A.D. Madden, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK
& J. Palimi, School of Business Administration, University of Papua New Guinea, P O Box 320, National Capital District, Papua New Guinea
Berners-Lee, T. (1999) Weaving the Web. Orion Publishing, UK.
Connolly, B & Anderson, R. (1987) First Contact: New Guinea highlanders encounter the outsider world. New York: Viking Penguin
Ellis, D. (1989) "A behavioural approach to information retrieval system design." Journal of Documentation 45 (2) 171 - 212.
Ellis, D. Cox, D. Hall, K. (1993) "A comparison of the information seeking patterns of researchers in the physical and social sciences". Journal of Documentation 49 (4) 356 - 369.
Herring, M. Y. (2001) American Libraries, April 2001, p. 76-78.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1988) Savage Mind. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK.
Madden, Ford, Miller & Levy
Manguel, A. (1994). A History of Reading. London: Flamingo.
Miller, J. (1998). "What a tangled web we weave". The Guardian, Tuesday, 28 July
Plato (????) Phaedrus.
Schmandt-Besserat, D. (1997) How Writing Came About. University of Texas Press
Service, E.R. (1971) Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. 2nd Edition. Random House, New York
Stock, B (1983) The Implications of Literacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Strathern, A. (1984) A Line of Power. London: Tavistock Publications.
Thomas, A. G. (1975) Great Books and Book Collectors (London, 1975)
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Contents
- The Reliablity of Text
- On-line Publishing
-
Primitive Communities Structure
-
Kope of PNG
- Information flows within communities
- Information sources in the Kope tribe
- Tribal politics
- Presentation of information
- Initiation and religion
- Information roles in the Kope tribe
- Induction
- Dissemination
- Representation
- Interpretation
- Information roles and the Internet
- Induction
- Dissemination
- Representation
- Interpretation
- Discussion
- References
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