The distinction between intangibles (knowledge and information-as-knowledge) and tangibles (information-as-thing) is central to what follows. If you can touch it or measure it directly, it is not knowledge, but must be some physical thing, possibly information-as-thing. (…) Knowledge, however, can be represented, just as an event can be filmed. However, the representation is no more knowledge than the film is the event. Any such representation is necessarily in tangible form (sign, signal, data, text, film, etc.) and so representations of knowledge (and of events) are necessarily “information-as-thing.”
BUCKLAND, Michael. Information as thing. Journal of the American Society of Information Science 42:5 (June 1991). Disponível em http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/thing.html