  A general approach to study the hierarchical quantum information splitting
(HQIS) is proposed and the same is used to systematically investigate the
possibility of realizing HQIS using different classes of 4-qubit entangled
states that are not connected by SLOCC. Explicit examples of HQIS using 4-qubit
cluster state and 4-qubit |\Omega> state are provided. Further, the proposed
HQIS scheme is generalized to introduce two new aspects of hierarchical quantum
communication. To be precise, schemes of probabilistic hierarchical quantum
information splitting and hierarchical quantum secret sharing are obtained by
modifying the proposed HQIS scheme. A number of practical situations where
hierarchical quantum communication would be of use are also presented.
