ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nature of a native or everyday theory of information that views information as thinglike—objective and referential—and thereby discounts the inherently relational and socially constituted nature of information. It argues that this theory implicitly and detrimentally influences privileged understandings of communication process and human agency. The chapter considers empirical examples to illustrate how the assumption of the thingness of information creates problematic understandings of human agency in two contexts. The first context is that of psychiatric diagnosis, with particular reference to child psychiatric diagnosis of depression. The second context is taken from the study of nonverbal behavior in get- acquainted encounters. In both contexts information was viewed as indexical of persons within a framework that views information as an unproblematic mapping of reality, that views information as a thing. It is a view of information that denigrates communication in that it treats it as a conduit.
