Information consists of related elements and forms which are actively present and discretely identifiable within one or more specific contexts.
8/16/19: Information is being deprioritized in MOT in favor of the more specialized term data, which in this author's opinion avoids the philosophical problems involved in usefully defining (and limiting) information. Therefore, information will probably be delinked from many or most uses.
2017: My much longer description of "information" elsewhere is gradually being updated, and may or may not be added here. I find it difficult to create a basic definition which accurately and sufficiently describes physical, mental and social information. For example, physical information is active within physical contexts and mental information is active within conceptual contexts, but social contexts are physically mediated (often via signs carried by media). I'll keep working on the variables.