The author will propose a sociology of information to address these issues. The expression ’sociology of information’ is not intended to suggest that there is a body of social theory which is peculiar to information. Rather, it is like the expressions ’philosophy of mathematics’ or ’philosophy of education’. The purpose, that is to say, is to advanceunderstanding of information through the application of social theory, rather than to advance sociological theory through insights gained from particular social (or physical) phenomena, though the latter approach is not, we may hope, precluded. Mann (1986, 4) wrote that societies are much messier than our theories of them. If the study of society and mind is the study of information, then a sociology of information would, of its nature, draw on diverse theoretical perspectives.