  From a traditional point of view, the value of information does not change
during transmission. The Shannon information theory considers information
transmission as a statistical phenomenon for measuring the communication
channel capacity. However, in modern communication systems, information is
spontaneously embedded with a cognitive link during the transmission process,
which requires a new measurement that can incorporate continuously changing
information value. In this paper, we introduce the concept of cognitive
information value and a method of measuring such information. We first describe
the characteristics of cognitive information followed by an introduction of the
concept of cognitive information in measuring information popularity. The new
measurement is based on the mailbox principle in the information value chain.
This is achieved by encapsulating the information as a mailbox for transmission
where the cognition is continuously implemented during the transmission
process. Finally, we set up a cognitive communication system based on a
combination of the traditional communication system and cognitive computing.
Experimental results attest to the impact of incorporating cognitive value in
the performance of 5G networks.
