Information policies are proxies for power. 

The nature of a proxy in information infrastructure is to be understood tacitly.

Tacit knowledges often are only visible at those points where infrastructure fractures.

These fractures are made visible, however, in the paradoxes we stumble upon

in our everyday information cultures. 

Therefore, paradoxes reveal the fragmented edges–cracks and gaps–between the socio- (“who”) and technological  (“what”) when we study information infrastructure in everyday practices.

I had this thought yesterday as I was having a conversation with a colleague about organizational design theories. I asked what theories she uses for meaning-making, and as I listened I realized I draw heavily on my information theorist training. At the risk of seeing everything as an “informatics problem”, I do believe that in some fundamental way information is, indeed, the dark matter in our information universes. Invisible, necessary, and at the core of all we know.

Theory building is practical, Pragmatic work, and I need to play a bit by applying this idea in specific areas: varied workplace settings, formal education, informal learning institutions, and in everyday homelife. We have “information policies” in every sphere–articulated or not.