Information's increasing importance in contemporary societies raises questions concerning laymen's valuation of information and of professionals producing information. The main hypotheses were: (a) potential sellers will underestimate information's value compared to that of material goods; (b) when potential buyers' involvement is high (that is high investment and high risk), sellers will demand even lower prices for information; (c) some important current functions and meanings of information are not assimilated in social representations of information; (d) by contrast, participants must overvalue the remuneration of professionals producing pure information (invention) compared to those who apply this information to produce material goods. An experimental study confirmed hypotheses (a) and (b). A second study to investigate the structure of information's social representations showed that the representation's central core is mainly composed of categories referring to traditional media, functions and technologies; contemporary functions and technologies are less frequent or absent. A third experimental study confirmed hypothesis (d).
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