I want to revisit the notion of information from a cybernetic viewpoint, drawing primarily from Gregory Bateson’s well-known formulation that information is the difference that makes a difference. This definition doesn’t merely redefine information. It quietly displaces information from where it’s assumed to reside and how it’s assumed to function. This article is part of a series examining a cybernetic approach to tackling misinformation.

In everyday discourse, information is commonly treated as a thing. We speak of information being transmitted, stored, corrupted, lost, or controlled. This language suggests that information exists independently of those who encounter it, as if it were a commodity that could be packaged and delivered. Cybernetics has long resisted this framing, not by denying the existence of data in the form of signals or messages but by insisting that information can’t be separated from the consequences it produces within a system.

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