Information processing
pp. 341-363
in: Luciano L'Abate (ed), Paradigms in theory construction, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
Information processing and communication have been investigated in a large number of different disciplines: computer science, rhetoric, psychology, mathematics, sociology, anthropology, organizational economics, and many others. Information theory (Guiasu, 1977; Shannon & Weaver, 1949) and communication theory as specific disciplines have drawn an increasing interest since the inception of new communication channels and devices. Thus, we have a phenomenal variety of areas and contributions related to information processing and communication principles, theories and models, whose growth is now considered exponential (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY; Berlo, 1960; Laswell, 1948; Ruben, 1984). Computer science has been investigating information processing as related to communication in the context of such disciplines as artificial intelligence, natural language processing, human computer interface, knowledge management, multimedia, and many others, often addressing also human-side aspects beside those considered in the first approaches, that included, for example, artificial languages to code algorithms in computer programs.