Information has always been important in human affairs. Even when humans were nomadic information on sources of food and location of safety were important and critical. In those times information was local and was of any use only within that locality and community.
However with the advent of technologies such as telegraphs in the 18th century- local information could be transmitted to distance places. Thus information is made available at different location there by making it available to decision makers. The seperation of information from its locality ( or origin) and transmission of the same to different locations made a fundamental difference for people in knowing and managing thier affairs. A farmer now a days can decide to move his "field produce" to one of selected markets after gathering latest information about market and price fluations in those markets.
The ability of technologies such as telegraph to transmit information over distance have "potential" to change the destiny of countries. During the first Indian Independance uprising in 1857, British government used telegraph system to move information about "troops" than troops themselves and eventually won it over. The native rulers did not have such advantage though they did have possibly a good resource to win those battles
