Bandura's Social Cognition 55
4
Bandura's Social Cognition
Makiko Miwa R&D Division National Institute of Multimedia Education, Japan iniwamaki@nime.ac.jp
Albert Bandura created social learning theory in the 1970s to empha-size the significance of observational learning. He maintained that most human behavior is learned by modeling. As the theory developed and expanded its scope to include psychological phenomena of motivational and self-regulatory mechanisms, Bandura renamed it "social cognitive theory." The new name emphasizes the social origins of much human thought and action, as well as the influential causal contribution of thought processes to human motivation, affect, and action.
Central to Bandura's theory, and particularly useful for a study of human information behavior, are three premises:
1) Triadic reciprocal causation posits that behavioral, cognitive, and other environmental influences all operate interactively as determinants of each other.
2) Multiple levels of goals assumes that goals are cognitively generated future events which motivate present human behavior. Bandura (1989) incorporates multiple levels of goals to explain how higher-level distal goals of general prin-ciples control lower-level goals of context-specific plan.
3) Self-efficacy proposes that people generate their thoughts, behavior, and affective states and that these, in turn, affect the course their own thoughts, behavior, and affective states, and that these, in turn, affect the courses of action people choose to take, the amount of effort they put forth, their resistance to failure, and the level of accomplishment they achieve.
Numerous studies in a variety of domains adopted Bandura's social cognitive theory as a general theory or metatheory to explain and/or analyze
54
human behavior in the context of everyday life. Wilson (1996) developed several models of human information seeking and information behavior and integrated them with models developed by other authors into a more general framework, generating a variety of research strategics. His 1996 model of information behavior adopts self-efficacy as a part of the activating mechanism of information seeking in order to explain why some information needs do not invoke information-seeking behavior.
Ren (1999) investigated uses of a variety of government information sources by small business managers in the State of New Jersey. She found that respondents with higher self-efficacy in using a particular information source are likely to use the source. Ren also found that executives with higher Internet self-efficacy used the Internet more frequently for government information searches than others.
Miwa (2000) conducted telephone interviews with 62 AskERIC users and analyzed their information-seeking processes. By adopting the conceptualization of multiple levels of goals from Bandura's social cognitive theory she identified several occurrences of modification in users' goals during their information-seeking processes. Her findings underscore the dynamic nature of information-seeking processes.
Savolainen (2001) proposed a concept of network competence in the context of information seeking. He defined network competence as "the mastery of four major areas: knowledge of information resources available on the Internet, skilled use of the ICT tools to access information, judgment of the relevance of information, and communication" (p. 211). Savolainen developed his model of network competence by adopting the concept of self-efficacy from Bandura's social cognitive theory. The model relates four major factors of network competence: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, affective factors (e.g., anxiety), and experiences received from information seeking on the Internet. Savolainen emphasizes the significance of associations between network competence and self-efficacy in finding information on the Internet.
While Bandura and his colleagues used experimental methods in developing the theory, it can also be used as a general framework for naturalistic inquiry in data collection and analysis, as demonstrated by Miwa (2000). The theory can also serve as a framework for survey research as performed by Ren (1999), and for generating and/or synthesizing domain-specific models for information seeking and information
56 Theories of Information Behavior
Bandura's Social Cognition 57
behavioral research as demonstrated by Wilson (1999) and Savolainen (2001).
Social cognitive theory is a general theory or metatheory applicable to various types of everyday human behavior including information behav-ior. The theory has been tested and verified in a variety of contexts and applied not only in psychology but also in numerous domains including information studies. The theory is capable of capturing internal and external notions of social constraint. The major strength of this theory in information behavioral research seems to be its applicability to a variety of contexts and settings, particularly within everyday information behavior. Thus, the theory may help draw a big picture of human infor-mation behavior.
Though Bandura and his colleagues employed experimental design in developing and testing social cognitive theory, it miglit be difficult to apply experimental design in human information behavioral research incorporating the theory. This is mainly because the cognitive and affective states of humans seeking information are not directly observable. Information-seeking behavior is initiated unexpectedly when people perceive a gap or an anomalous state of knowledge. Thus, it might not be easy to employ direct observational technique in collecting naturalistic data of human information behavior incorporating social cognitive theory.
More research is needed to develop a general model of human information seeking and/or behavior in everyday life. Social cognitive theory may be a useful tool in conceptualizing and designing information behavioral research as well as in analyzing empirical data. For example, triadic recipe rocal causation may be useful in developing a framework to be used in capturing a variety of cognitive, affective, and social factors associated with human information behavior in everyday life settings. Multiple levels of goals may be useful in differentiating task goals and IR goals in studying IR interaction. It may also be useful in capturing modification of goals in information-seeking processes. Finally, the concept of self-efficacy may have explanatory power for different levels of performance in information seeking and problem solving.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundation of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1989). Self-regulation of motivation and action through internal standards and goal systems. In A. P. Lawrence (Ed.), Qoal concepts in personality and social psychology (pp. 19-85). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
Miwa, M. (2000). Use of human intermediation in information problem solving: A users' perspective. Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology.
Ren, W. (2001). Self-efficacy and the search for government information. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 38(3) 283-291.
Savolainen, R. (2002). Network competence and network information seeking on the Internet: from definitions towards a social cognitive model. Journal of Documentation, 38(2) 211-226.
Wilson, T. D., & Walsh, C. (1996). Information behaviour: An interdisciplinary perspective. Sheffield, UK: University of Sheffield.
Berrypicking 59
5
Berrypicking
Marcia J. Bates Department of Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles, USA mjbates@ucla.edu
The act of searching for information is, in itself, a very important part of the general behavior of information seeking. In the 1970s and 1980s much attention in library and information science was given to searching techniques. New online systems were being developed, and there was a recognized need for more sophistication in thinking about the searching process. Bates (1979a & b) wrote about information search tactics and produced the first Annual Review of Information Science and Technology chapter on search techniques (1981). Searching techniques needed to be quite sophisticated for a number of the systems developed in those years, and textbooks and compendia of searching methods appeared (e.g., Armstrong & Large, 1988; Harter, 1986).
The needs of the search process raised important questions in inform mation seeking and information retrieval research as well. Despite the obvious connections between the research in these two areas, the two communities of researchers did not have as much to do with each other as would have been desirable. On the one hand, information-seeking research was demonstrating the complex factors involved in human efforts to find information; on the other hand, information retrieval research concentrated on testing and improving computer retrieval algorithms. In the information retrieval (IR) environment, it was not uncommon to work with standard, invented queries and standardized relevance assessments on those queries. Often, no actual user and no real search queries were involved.
Further, IR research was almost entirely organized around the single query That is, an information search was assumed to consist of one use of an information system, in order to ask one question. The universal model for the information search in IR research was the case where the user would submit a query to an information system, the system would
respond with an answer, the user might modify the query formulation to improve the system response, or the system itself would modify the query based on user interest in retrieved articles (so-called "relevance feedback"), and then, when the best search formulation had been found for that one, same query, the searcher would print out the records (usu-ally assumed to be bibliographic citations), and walk away. One query one use.
In the 1980s, however, more and more research was appearing that demonstrated how people really search for information. In particular, more work was published on the information-seeking behavior of social scientists (e.g., Ellis, 1989), and humanities scholars (Stone, 1982). The one-stop model of online searching seemed poorly fitted to the more grad' ual and complex information gathering associated with those disciplines. Furthermore, in the late 1970s and in the 1980s, the online searching world was dominated by database vendors such as DIALOG and LEXIS-NEXIS. Librarian intermediaries who searched databases would log on to one of these vendors' systems, and then search on one or more of the databases offered by the vendor—one-stop shopping, as it were. The mind-set in both research and practice at the time was overwhelmingly organized around the idea of trained librarian intermediaries getting everything in one search and with one search language. The idea of searching for many different types of information in a single search session at a computer, and in many types of sources (not only in bibliographic or full text databases), was still seen only dimly on the far horizon, and was not front and center in researchers' or practitioners' thinking.
The development of online catalogs in the 1980s, however, began to shake up these assumptions. First, online catalogs were designed for the nonlibrarian end-user. Virtually no skilled training could be assumed. Second, combining different kinds of databases and interfaces began to be a realistic possibility in the late 1980s, as libraries loaded other databases, sometimes with very different interfaces, into their catalogs.
Bates drew on all these developments to argue that real information searching does not always work in the one query/one use way that had been assumed, and that, furthermore, with the development of more sophisticated computer systems than had been possible in earlier years, we could now design for the way that people really search. In an article
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Berrypicking 61
titled "The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface" (Bates, 1989), she laid out a model of the berry-picking search, and then proposed a variety of design features that users of online systems might like to have to accomplish their searching goals.
The berrypicking model differs from the traditional information retrieval searching model in four ways. Each will be discussed in turn:
1) Nature of the Query. According to Bates, real-life queries change and evolve during the course of searching, specifically, people:
[M]ay begin with just one feature of a broader topic, or just one relevant reference, and move through a variety of sources. Each new piece of information they encounter gives them new ideas and directions to follow and, consequently, a new conception of the query. At each stage they are not just modifying the search terms used in order to get a better match for a single query. Rather the query itself (as well as the search terms used) is continually shifting, in part or whole. (1989, pp. 409-410)
2) Nature of the Overall Search Process. Bates said:
[A]t each stage, with each different conception of the query, the user may identify useful information and references. In other words, the query is satisfied not by a single final retrieved set, but by a series of selections of individual references and bits of information at each stage of the ever-modifying search. (1989, p. 410)
Bates called this bit-at-a-time retrieval berrypicking, by analogy with picking huckleberries in the forest, as she had done in prior years when living in Washington state.
3) Range of Search Techniques Used. Bates pointed out that the usual model of subject searching in databases, which dominated the thinking at the time in the field, was only one of many techniques people might use online, and do use offline. In addition to subject searching in bibliographic databases, people also do footnote chasing (moving backward through the literature by following up endnotes and footnotes), citation
searching (moving forward through the literature by using citation indexes to see who has cited a given item or author), journal run (identifying a central journal in a subject area of interest and reviewing its contents pages), area scanning (browsing the materials collocated with other items already located), and author searching (searching for other works by an author already located) (Bates, 1989, p. 412). The techniques are not limited to this set.
4) Domain Searched. The approach taken above to searching necessarily implies that people search in different sources than we had usually thought of in information science research—in many other places besides bibliographic databases, as the searcher's ever-shifting berrypicking search moves from source to source, technique to technique.
As of this writing in spring 2004, the initial article on berrypicking (Bates, 1989) had been cited 148 times, according to the "ISI Web of Knowledge" citation databases (isiknowledge.com). Authors have used the article in addressing a wide range of information seeking and information system design questions, including many human-computer interface issues, as well as in work on the nature of browsing, and on information searching tactics. Bates addressed additional possible approaches to information system design that were sensitive to searching techniques in Bates (1990). She recently reanalyzed the original six techniques suggested (feature 3 mentioned previously) in terms of the gigantic search domain of the World Wide Web, and linked the analysis to the Bradford Distribution. Specifically, she suggested that the six techniques were each optimal for different regions of the distribution of relevant documents that there are on a subject in a domain (Bates, 2002). She also analyzed searching behavior in a joint paper with Suresh Bhavnani, in which the techniques and theories of cognitive science were applied to the information searching process (Bhavnani & Bates, 2002).
Finally, many of Bates' suggestions have been taken up in the world of the practice of information system design, where products and capabilities are introduced in vendors' systems and put up on the Web or incorporated into other information systems. It is impossible to know the extent to which these information system changes were influenced by Bates' work, or were redeveloped independently. However, the high citation count suggests that knowledge of the paper has been widespread.
62 Theories of Information Behavior
Armstrong, C. J., & Large, J. A., Eds. (1988). Manual of online search strategies. Aldershot, England: Gower.
Bates, M. J. (1979a). Information search tactics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 30(4), 205—214.
Bates, M. J. (1979b). Idea tactics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 30(5), 280-289
Bates, M. J. (1981). Search techniques. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 16, 139-169.
Bates, M. J. (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface. Online Review, 13(5), 407—424.
Bates, M. J. (1990). Where should the person stop and the information search interface start? Information Processing & Management, 26(5), 575—591.
Bates, M. J. (2002). Speculations on browsing, directed searching, and linking in relation to the Bradford Distribution. In H. Bruce, R. Fidel, P. Ingwersen, & P. Vakkari (Eds.), Emerging frameworks and methods: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on conceptions of library and information science (CoLIS4) (pp. 137-150). Greenwood Village, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Bhavnani, S., & Bates, M. J. (2002). Separating the knowledge layers: Cognitive analy-sis of search knowledge through hierarchical goal decompositions. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 39, 204-213.
Ellis, D. (1989). A behavioural approach to information retrieval system design. Journal of Documentation, 45(3), 171—212.
Harter, S. P. (1986). Online information retrieval: Concepts, principles, and techniques. Orlando: Academic Press.
ISIWeb of Knowledge. Retrieved June 9, 2004, from http://isiknowledge.com
Stone, S. (1982). Humanities scholars: Information needs and uses. Journal of Documentation, 38(4), 292—313.
Big6™ Skills for Information Literacy
Carrie A. Lowe American Library Association, USA clowe@alawash. org
Michael B. Eisenberg The Information School University of Washington, USA mbe(5)u. Washington, edu
Information literacy, defined as the ability to "recognize when information is needed and.. .locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information" (American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, 1989, pi), is clearly the new basic skill set of the 21st century. New South Wales Department of Education's (n. d.) infor-mation process, Kuhlthau's (1993) information seeking, Stripling and Pitts's (1988) research process, and Irving's (1985) study and information skills guide educators as they incorporate information literacy skills in curricular context. These and other information literacy models underscore the fact that although there are specific skills that create information problem-solving, these steps are iterative and flexible (Eisenberg and Brown, 1992).
Research as well as practice shows that successful problem solving involves a series of steps or stages. Kuhlthau (1993) uncovered a series of steps that typically occurs in successful information searching. There are similarities between Kuhlthau's information search process steps and the stages of various models of information literacy (see Table 6.1). These information process models provide a road map for implementation and instruction of information literacy skills in the curriculum.
Among the information processing models shown in Table 6.1, a prominent position belongs to the Big6 approach developed by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz (1990). The Big6 guides learners as they
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68 Theories of Information Behavior
Eisenberg, M. B., & Johnson, D. (2002). Computer skills for information problem-solv ing: learning and teaching technology in context. ERIC Digest EDO-IR-96-04. Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology.
Eisenberg, M. B., & Brown, M. K. (1992). Current themes regarding library and information skills instruction: Research supporting and research lacking. School Library Media Quarterly, 20(2), 103-109.
Eisenberg, M., Lowe, C, & Spitzer, K. (2004). Information literacy: Essential skills for the information age (2nd ed.). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Irving, A. (1985). Study and information skills across the curriculum. London: Heinemann Educational Books.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (1993). Seeking meaning: A process approach to library and information services. Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
Lance, K. C, Rodney, M. J., & Hamilton-Pennell, C. (2000). How school librarians help kids achieve standards: The second Colorado study. San Jose, CA: Hi Willow.
Lance, K. C, Welborn, L., & Hamilton-Pennell, C. (1992). The impact of school library media centers on academic achievement. Denver, CO: Department of Education.
New South Wales Department of Education, (n. d.). Information skills in the school. Retrieved February 21, 2004, from www.schools.nsw.edu.au/schoollibraries/ resources/policy, htm
Stripling, B., & Pitts, J. (1988). Brainstorms and blueprints: Teaching library research as a thinking process. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Todd, R. (1995). Integrated information literacy skills instruction: Does it make a difference? School Library Media Quarterly, 23(2), 133—139.
Wolf, S., Brush, T., & Saye, J. (2003). The Big Six information skills as a metacognitive scaffold: A case study. School Library Media Research, 6. Retrieved February 21, 2004, from www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrconteiats/volume 62003/bigsixinformation.htm
Chang's Browsing
Shan-Ju L. Chang Department of Library and Information Science National Taiwan University, Taiwan sjlin@ntu.edu.tw
Browsing is a commonly observed form of human information behavior. As a concept, it appears in many different disciplines with various meanings (Chang & Rice, 1993). Browsing as an important part of human information behavior has been observed and investigated in the context of information seeking in the library in general and has assumed a greater importance as an information search strategy in human-machine interaction in particular. However, conceptualization of browsing has been problematic because its nature is not well understood.
In order to understand the notion of browsing and provide the descriptive data for studying browsing, Chang (1995) first analyzed the literature to develop a preliminary model of browsing. This model was modified based on the findings from empirical observations and interview data from 33 users of three different library settings (including academic, public, and special libraries) to derive a descriptive conceptual framework for understanding browsing phenomena.
The resultant framework, based on the empirical evidence, makes explicit some unclear concepts associated with browsing in the litera* ture, such as "vagueness" of goal or object, and clarifies the role of knowledge. It provides an analytical language, through characterization of the browsing process, for systematic description of various types of browsing behavior and for better articulation of what Herner (1976) calls "the levels of browsing." Chang's study contributes to the literature by identifying the five contexts that motivate people to browse and systematically describes the situations in which various types of browsing take place, which result in nine specific patterns of browsing.
Research in browsing by Chang (1995) documents why, how, and what people browse in terms of four underlying dimensions: behavior, motivation, cognition, and resource. Chang developed a taxonomy of
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Chang's Browsing 71
browsing with empirical evidence on a further set of four subdimensions: scanning, goal, object, and form. Along with a second set of four subdi-mensions, movement, purpose, knowledge, and focus, nine patterns of browsing were identified. Together with a follow-up study (Chang, 2000), as shown in Figure 7.1, Chang proposes a multidimensional framework for understanding the influences on the process of browsing as well as the con-sequences of browsing.
Context (environment, display, etc.)
r
nfluence
Process
General theme/ pattern
Consequence
Behavior Movement
Motivation Purpose
Cognition Knowledge
Resource Focus
Behavior Scanning
Motivation Goal
Cognition Object
Resource Form
Specific
nonbrowsing
situational
opportunistic Common
systematic
evaluative
focus Up-to-date
monitoring Finding out
indicative .
preparatory Goal-free
invitational
Accidental findings Modifying the
information need Learning Finding desired
information Satisfying curiosity Keeping updated Feeling relaxed,
recreation Gathering
information Keeping updated Not finding info
Iteration with change
Evaluation
Feadback from system
Figure 7.1   Refined framework of browsing.
Note: From Accessing and Browsing Information and Communication
(p. 255), by R. E. Rice, M. McCreadie, and S-J. L . Chang, 2001, Boston, MA: MIT Press, Copyright 2001 by M!T Press. Adapted with permission.
This framework shows that movement, purpose, knowledge, and focus in the behavioral, motivational, cognitive, and resource dimen-sions, respectively, influence the browsing process in which people
engage. In turn, the browsing process (in scanning, goal, object, and form dimensions) helps to determine the general themes and specific patterns of browsing.
The four dimensions that can be utilized to describe the process of browsing refer to:
1) The level of scanning activity
2) The specificity of information provided by the resource
3) The definiteness or specificity of the patron's goal
4) The specificity of the object sought
Scanning as a nonverbal behavior (there is no need to express the intent of one's actions in words) is considered a browsing activity, especially when it involves the more attentive acts of identifying, selecting, and examining. Behaviorally, browsing is increasingly easier to recognize as the level of scanning involvement increases—that is, when a patron's behavior involves selecting and examining an item after looking through a series of items.
The resource scanned refers to a series of information items under consideration. Four levels of a resource are identified according to the specificity of information provided for examination.
The goal dimension involves various degrees of open-endedness to the criteria for valid information acquisition, from intent to locate, evaluate, keep up, learn, and satisfy curiosity. The object dimension refers to what a patron seeks or expects while scanning a resource. The object can range from seeking a specific item, (or items sharing some common character-istics) to something general. Table 7.1 illustrates the elements of each dimension and shows the taxonomy of browsing. Thus, a given browsing activity can be described according to the level of scanning, the kind of resource scanned, and the type of goal and object.
Chang identifies nine specific patterns of browsing within each of five general themes:
1) Looking for a specific item — reveals situational browsing and opportunistic browsing
2) Looking for something with common characteristics — includes systematic browsing, evaluative browsing, and focus browsing
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Chang's Browsing 73
3) Keeping up-to-date — monitoring browsing
4) Learning or finding out — includes indicative browsing and preparatory browsing
5) Qoal'free — invitational browsing
The patterns of browsing are characterized by the type of browsing that the patron engages in, along with four other criteria—movement (directed, interrupted, or undirected), knowledge (of location and content; high or low), purpose (to support or incidental), and focus (structure or content of a resource scanned).
For example, situational browsing is characterized by examining other unknown items during the process of locating a specific item, once the general area containing the needed item is identified. The type of browsing involved in this case can be described examining information objects to evaluate items with common characteristics. Opportunistic browsing is differentiated from situational browsing because it is characterized by scanning other items "incidental to the original purpose" during the process of locating a specific, intended item. Preparatory
Table 7.1   Dimensions and elements in the taxonomy of browsing.
Scanning	Resource	Goal	Object
Looking for	Meta-information	Locate	Specific item
Identifying	Object (whole)	Evaluate	Common items
Selecting	Object (part)	Keep up	Defined location
Examining	Information	Learn	General
		Satisfy curiosity	None
		Be entertained	
Note: From Accessing and Browsing Information and Communication (p. 295), by R. E. Rice, M. McCreadie, & S-J. L. Chang, 2001, Boston, MA: MIT Press. Copyright 2001 by MIT Press. Reprinted with permission.
browsing is characterized by learning something not specified. That is, no specific information or logical information object is sought. Rather, an information object known to the patron as having potentially interesting articles is scanned to look at whatever appears of interest is characteristic of this pattern. As another example, invitational browsing is characterized by scanning information or information objects to satisfy intrinsic motivation with no stated goal in mind. Often a given path of a resource area is followed (e.g., scanning sections of a newspaper or bookshelf sequentially). Browsing is invitational in that there is no specified objective to look for or learn about; the goal is open-ended to the extent that it is determined almost completely by external objects such as the appearance of books.
According to Chang, browsing, in essence, is an examination of unknown items of potential interest by scanning or moving through an information space in order to judge the utility of the items, to learn about something of interest in the item, or to satisfy curiosity about something. Browsing is often associated with the vagueness of information objects sought in order to make a value judgment. The nature of browsing is fundamentally evaluative and inclusive. At the micro-level, the nature of a browser's goal and specificity of object sought are the two most important factors influencing the way people browse.
Chang's research suggests that the concept of browsing is multifac-eted. It serves as a search strategy when people are exposed to many alternatives to look for useful or interesting documents, to locate information items not considered beforehand or not found in the bibliographic tools. It also serves as a screening technique to help people decide what not to read, to filter out an unknown item of potential interest or use, which is actually not interesting or useful after examination. Browsing also serves as a viewing pattern in that the browser intends to identify something of potential interest to read by glancing through or "reading" the unknown items encountered in the process, but stops reading as soon as the item fails to hold the browser's interest. Such an evaluative viewing process can often result in a learning effect simply because of the opportunity of encountering the unknown. Finally, browsing is also a recreational activity that people engage in to satisfy an intrinsic need for enjoyment or diversion.
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The characterization of browsing as an examination of unknown items, with scanning or moving through an information space, seems to explain why people constantly browse—because they are often surrounded with unknown items in our complex and fast-changing world. This includes all kinds of information objects and information, or even meta-information.
The implication of Chang's browsing framework and taxonomy for system design is that information systems can and should be designed to support various patterns of browsing. System development also needs to include personal attributes and "browsability" in its criteria for evalua-tion. In practical terms, Chang's work suggests that information providers (e.g., libraries) should arrange physical layout and displays in a way that encourages both successful and enjoyable browsing. Future research may test the browsing framework in alternative settings, such as shopping malls or Web sites on the Internet.
Chang, S-J. L., & Rice, R. E. (1993). Browsing: A multidimensional framework. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 28, 231- 276.
Chang, S'J. L. (2001). Browsing and communication (Chapters 9—15). In: R. E. Rice, M. McCreadie, & S'J. L. Chang. Accessing and browsing information and communication. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Chang, S-J. L. (2000). Research on browsing behavior in the libraries: An empirical analysis of consequences, success, and influences. Journal of Library and Information Studies (National Taiwan University), no.I5, 37—68.
Chang, S-J. L. (1995). Toward a multidimensional framework for understanding browsing (Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University, 1995). Dissertation Abstracts International, 57, 494.
Herner, S. (1970). Browsing. In Encyclopedia of library and information science (Vol. 3, pp. 408-415). New York: Marcel Dekker.
8
Chatman's Information Poverty
Julie Hersberger Department of Library and Information Studies University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA j ahersbe@uncg. edu
Elfreda Chatman's theory of information poverty first appeared in print in the March 1996 volume of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science. Chatman had been publishing articles for many years that examined information needs and information-seeking behaviors of marginalized populations. In a keynote presentation at the opening of the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2000 Conference, she explained the historical events underpinning development of her theories of information poverty, life in the round and normative behavior (Chatman, 2000). Chatman traced the evolution of many of her previous studies into three new middle-range theories that better explained her lifelong observations of information seeking by various populations in an everyday life context.
Regarding the theory of information poverty, Chatman explains: "I began my inquiries several years ago by wanting to discover: what constitutes a poverty lifestyle? On the surface this is a simple, almost elementary question. However, its answer has driven me to several conceptual frameworks and even the creation of several of my own" (Chatman, 2000, p. 4).
The theory of information poverty is set within the larger conceptual framework of information insiders and outsiders or what Chatman refers to as "the sociology of knowledge" (Chatman, 1996, pp. 194—197). What Chatman is describing here is what sociologists and anthropologists have for decades debated as the emic and etic approach to social science study. For an excellent article that explains the complexities of these analytical distinctions see Sandstrom (2004).
Following several studies, but in particular her study on the information world of aging women, Chatman did not find the expected results of information sharing in a homogeneous population. Social network theory
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Chatman's Information Poverty 77
did not satisfactorily explain this lack of information exchange. As a result, Chatman developed her theory of information poverty that cstab-lished four key concepts: secrecy, deception, risk-taking, and situational relevance, each of which may be invoked as self-protective behaviors during the information-seeking process. Chatman (1996, p. 195) cites Bok's definition of secrecy as "intentional concealment.. .the overall intent of secret information is the idea that it will protect a person from unwanted intrusion into private space."
In terms of deception, Chatman suggests that "deception is a deliberate attempt to play-act, that is, to engage in activities in which our personal reality is consciously being distorted. It is a process meant to hide our true condition by giving false and misleading information" (Chatman, p. 196). Risk-taking is conceptualized as "an attribute affecting the acceptance of an innovation based on our perception of whether it is worthwhile or not. It does not seem to merit consideration if, weighed against personal or negative cost, the result would be negative" (Chatman, 1996, p. 196). Situational relevance is conceptualized as being consistent with the term "utility" (Chatman, 1996, p. 201).
From these four key concepts, six propositions were derived:
1) The information poor perceive themselves to be devoid of any sources that might help them.
2) Information poverty is partially associated with class distinction.
3) Information poverty is determined by self-protective behaviors, which are used in response to social norms.
4) Both secrecy and deception are self-protecting mechanisms due to a sense of mistrust regarding the interest or ability of others to provide useful information.
5) A decision to risk exposure about our true feelings is often not taken due to a perception that negative consequences outweigh benefits.
6) New knowledge will be selectively introduced into the information world of poor people. A condition that influences this process is the relevance of that information in response to everyday problems and concerns (Chatman, 1996, pp. 197—198).
Chatman notes that the six propositions "...represent a collective rather than individualistic model of need. As a theoretical framework, their purpose is to describe an impoverished information world" (Chatman, 1996, p. 197). Chatman (1996, p. 197) posits that:
.. .our membership in a particular social group contributes to information poverty. How? Because we can experience a need for information but are hindered from seeking it. Thus, we engage in self-protective behaviors to keep others from sensing our need. These behaviors are meant to hide our true crisis in an effort to appear normal and to exhibit acceptable coping behaviors.
Chatman's work has been extensively cited in the LIS literature. The theory of information poverty has been cited mainly by scholars examining contexts in which information seekers practice some sort of protective behavior, which, as a result, affects their access to useful or helpful information. In studies using Chatman's propositions as an analytical framework with the everyday information world of the homeless, Hersberger (2002/2003) and Hersberger, Pettigrew, & James (2000) found that some of the six statements were supported while others were not. As Chatman writes, "The value of propositions to theory construction lies in their ability to be tested, thereby strengthening or weakening the theory" (1996, p. 198).
One major flaw in Chatman's work here is her misuse of the term "social network theory." Scholars in this area are very assertive in maintaining that there is no central social network theory; rather, there are many. Scott (2000) states:
It is undoubtedly the case that that social network analysis embodies a particular theoretical orientation towards the structure of the social world and that it is, therefore, linked with structural theories of action. But it is unlikely that any one substantive theory should be regarded as embodying the essence of social network analysis. The point of view... is that social network analysis is an orientation towards the social world that inheres in a particular set of methods. It is not a specific body of formal or substantive social theory. (Scott, 2000, p. 37)
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Lin's theory of social capital or Granovetter's theory of strong and weak ties might also be useful to scholars wishing to examine social net' works as information networks. Furthermore, Scott's handbook on social network analysis is another useful resource for explaining the basics of social network analysis. Still, Chatman's four core concepts and six propositions posed in the theory of information poverty do work better perhaps as a conceptual framework or an analytical framework until more theory testing occurs.
The theory of Information Poverty, therefore, may prove useful in future LIS studies, particularly those investigating information seeking by individuals who hold memberships in various marginalized groups.
Chatman, E. A. (2000). Framing social life in theory and research. The New Review of Information Behaviour Research, 1, 3—18.
Chatman, E. A. (1996). The impoverished life-world of outsiders. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47, 193—206.
Chatman, E. A. (1992). The information world of aging women. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Chatman, E. A. (1983). The diffusion of information among the working poor. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Granovetter, M, S. (1982). The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. In P. V. Marsden & N. Lin (Eds.), Social structure and network analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78,1360-1380.
Hersberger, J. A. (2002/2003). Are the economically poor information poor? Does the digital divide affect the homeless and access to information? The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 27(3), 44—63.
Hersberger, J. A., Pettigrew, K. E., & James, L. (2000, April). Social capital as embed' ded in social networks of homeless populations. Paper presented at Sunbelt XXI, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sandstrom, P.E. (2004). Anthropological approaches to information systems and behavior. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 30(3), 12-16.'
Scott, J. (2000). Social network analysis (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
9
Chatman's Life in the Round
Crystal Fulton Department of Library and Information Studies University College Dublin, Ireland Crystal .Fulton@ucd. ie
The theory of life in the round represents a culmination of Elfreda Chatman's research during the 1980s and 1990s, which has focused on understanding information behavior through the social factors influencing that behavior. Of utmost importance to Chatman was exploring how ordinary people experience information in connection with everyday needs. She found that one's context was the determining factor of one's perspective on information and, therefore, shaped an individual's use or non-use of information. "Life in the round" offers a means to gaining in-depth insight into people's information behavior in that context.
Chatman put forth her theory in her 1999 article, "A Theory of Life in the Round." A "life in the round" is a "public form of life in which things are implicitly understood" (Chatman, 1999, p. 212), where members are concerned with their small world, the creation and support of social roles within that world, and information that can be used there. Currently applied in such research projects as Hersberger's exploration of the information needs of the homeless and the IBEC Life in the Round Project (IBEC, 2003), Chatman's theory continues to hold value for researchers exploring information behavior in a particular small-world context.
Chatman's ideas about life in the round have their roots in various sociological theories which influenced her research into everyday information behavior and assisted her with formulating the key concepts underpinning her theory (1998, 1999). For instance, Merton's (1972) research provided the basis of Chatman's use of the terms insiders and outsiders and informed her ideas of how insiders and outsiders respond to information problems (Chatman, 1996). Ultimately, Chatman's research into the social world of women prisoners led to her final development of a theory of life in the round.
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Cognitive Work Analysis 89
11
Cognitive Work Analysis
Raya Fidel The Information School University of Washington, USA fidelr @u. Washington .edu
Annelise Mark Pejtersen Cognitive Systems Engineering Center Riso National Laboratory Denmark AMP@risoe.dk
Cognitive work analysis (Vicente, 1999) is a work-centered conceptual framework developed by Rasmussen, Pejtersen, & Goodstein (1994) to analyze cognitive work. The purpose of cognitive work analysis (CWA) is to guide the design of technology for use in the work place. It is unique because of its ability to analyze real-life phenomena while retaining the complexity inherent in them. When applied to information behavior, the approach guides the analysis of human-information interaction in order to inform the design of information systems.
CWA's theoretical roots are in general systems thinking, adaptive control systems, and Gibson's ecological psychology, and it is the result of the generalization of experiences from field studies that led to the design of support systems for a variety of modern work domains, such as process plants and libraries. In the context of Information Science, the concept information system refers to any system, whether intellectual or computerized, that facilitates and supports human-information interaction. Thus, a library as a whole could be considered an information system, and so could a reference desk, the Web, an online public access catalog (OPAC), or a cataloging department.
Unlike the common approach to the design of information systems— design and development first and evaluation later—CWA evaluates first the system already in place, and then develops recommendations for design. The evaluation is based on the analysis of information behavior in context. CWA has been successfully applied to the evaluation and design
of information systems and collaboratories. For example, it guided the development of the first retrieval system for fiction called BookHouse (Pejtersen, 1989; Rasmussen et al., 1994; Pejtersen, 1992). Based on the analysis of reference interviews in public and school libraries, Pejtersen developed a fiction retrieval system, with a graphical user interface, in which users can look for books by a variety of attributes, such as the subject, historical period, mood, and the cover design. It serves children and adults as well as library catalogers. The system also caters to various strategies: users can just browse without any particular attribute in mind, look for a specific book, or look for books that are similar to one they liked. More recently, CWA was used to analyze data collected in a study of Web searching by high school students (Pejtersen & Fidel, 1998; Fidel et al., 1999). In this study, the framework proved to be very powerful in helping to uncover the problems that students experienced when using the Web to search for information, and offered recommendations for designs that can alleviate such problems. Pejtersen and her colleagues have recently completed the COLLATE project that will support multi-institutional collaboration in indexing and retrieval among the national film archives of Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic (Albrechtsen et al., 2002, Hertzum et al., 2002).
Cognitive work analysis considers people who interact with information "actors" involved in their work-related actions, rather than as "users" of systems. Focusing on information behavior on the job, CWA views human-information interaction in the context of human work activities. It assumes that in order to be able to design systems that work harmoniously with humans, one has to understand:
• The work actors do
• Their information behavior
• The context in which they work
• The reasons for their actions
Therefore, CWA focuses simultaneously on the task actors perform, the environment in which it is carried out, and the perceptual, cognitive, and ergonomic attributes of the people who do the task. A graphic presentation of the framework is given in Figure 11.1.
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Cognitive Work Analysis 91
The actual work environment
Work-domain analysis in terms of means-ends structure
n work' domain terms
Activity analysis Task si
n decisio making terms
in terms of mental strategies that can be used
Organizational analysis in terms , of division of work and social organization
Analysis of; user
sCháracteristics"— Ergonomií; analysis ";Of perception-action capabilities
Table I I. I   Examples of questions to ask for each dimension of cognitive work analysis.
Figure I I. I   The dimensions for analysis in cognitive work analysis.
In this presentation each set of attributes mentioned in Figure I LI is designated with a circle and is considered a dimension for analysis. Thus, each dimension is a host of attributes, factors, or variables, depending on the purpose and method of a study.
In addition to the dimensions for analysis, CWA provides several templates to support both analysis and modeling. These templates are particularly suitable for the analysis of complex and dynamic phenomena. To illustrate the content of each dimension, Table II .1 provides a few examples of questions one may want to ask when analyzing each dimension.
Although the dimensions are laid out in a certain order, employing them in actual projects follows no fixed sequence. Because of the interdependence among the dimensions, a researcher moves from one dimension to another in an iterative process. The path of this movement is determined by the particular problem at hand, and also by pragmatic considerations.
The dimensions presented by CWA represent the constraints on information seeking, starting with the individual resources and values of the actor to the external environment of the work place. For some dimensions, a dimension creates the constraint for the one nested within it. Thus, the work environment affects how a work place is operating, and this mode of operation shapes the task that an actor performs. The task, in turn, affects the decisions that an actor makes, and these decisions
!
Dimension	Examples of Questions to Ask in Analysis
Environment	What elements outside the organization affect it?
Work domain	What are the goals of the work domain? The constraints? The priorities? The functions? What physical processes take place? What tools are employed?
Organizational analysis	How is work divided among teams? What criteria are used? What is the nature of the organization, hierarchical, democratic, chaotic? What are the organizational values?
Task analysis in work domain terms	What is the task (e.g., design a new software product)? What are the goals of the task that generated an information problem? Constraints? The functions involved? The tools used?
Task analysis in decision making terms	What decisions are made (e.g., what metaphor to use for the interface)? What information is required? What sources are useful?
Task analysis in terms of strategies that can be used	What strategies are possible (e.g., browsing, the analytical strategy)? What strategies does actor prefer? What type of information is needed? What information sources does actor prefer?
Actor's resources and values	What is the formal training of the actor? Area of expertise? Experience with the subject domain and the work domain? Personal priorities? Personal values?
influence seeking behavior. In addition, the actor's characteristics have an effect on seeking behavior and so does the social organization of the work place. CWA assumes that while one can describe information behavior without taking these constraints into account, the best way to analyze information behavior is through an in-depth understanding of these constraints. Work analysis is, therefore, an analysis of the constraints that shape information behavior.
Because CWA investigates information behavior in context, individual studies create results that are valid for the design of information systems in the context investigated, rather then for the design of general information systems. Results from a variety of studies, however, can be
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combined and generalized to inform the design of other information systems.
Cognitive work analysis has several distinct attributes that are useful for the study of human-information interaction and for the design of information systems. Most importantly, it provides for a holistic approach that makes it possible to account for several dimensions simultaneously. In addition, the framework facilitates an in-depth examination of the various dimensions of a context. A study of a particular context is, therefore, a multidisciplinary examination with the purpose of understanding the interaction between people and information in the work context. These two attributes make the framework a powerful guide for the evaluation and design of information systems for the context under investigation because in reality all dimensions—personal, social, and organizational— play a role simultaneously and interdependently.
Lastly, while the framework is based on a set of conceptual and epis-temological constructs, it provides a .structure for the analysis of human-information interaction, without subscribing to specific theories or models. Sanderson (2003) explained that "The scientific foundations of CWA are various—a 'conceptual marketplace' as Rasmussen described it—because they have been appropriated to fulfill a practical need." One can employ a wide variety of theories, methods, or tools that may be deemed helpful for the analysis of a specific situation. This flexibility turns the focus of an investigation to the phenomenon under study, rather than to the testing and verification of models and theories, or to the employment of a particular methodology. At the same time, CWA has built-in mechanisms to carry out rigorous and systematic research.
Albrechtsen, H., Pejtersen, A. M., & Cleal, B. (2002). Empirical work analysis of collaborative film indexing. In H. Bruce et al. (Eds.), Emerging frameworks and methods: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on conceptions of library and information science (pp. 85—108). Greenwood Village, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Churchman, C. W. (1979). The systems approach. New York: Dell.
Fidel, R. et al. (1999). A visit to the information mall: Web searching behavior of high school students. Journal of the American Society of Information Science, 50, 24-37.
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Hertzum, M. et al. (2002). An analysis of collaboration in three film archives: a case for collaboratories. In H. Bruce et al. (Eds.), Emerging frameworks and methods: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on conceptions of library and information science (pp. 69—84). Greenwood Village, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Pejtersen, A. M. (1985). Implications of users' value perception for the design of a bibliographic retrieval system. In J. C. Agrawal, & P. Zunde (Eds.), Empirical founda-tions of information and software science (pp. 23—37). New York: Plenum.
Pejtersen, A. M. (1989). The BOOK House: Modeling user needs and search strategies as a basis for system design. Roskilde, Riso National Laboratory. (Riso report M-2794).
Pejtersen, A. M. (1992). The Book House: An icon based database system for fiction retrieval in public libraries. In B. Cronin (Ed.), The marketing of library and information services 2 (pp. 572—591). London: Aslib.
Pejtersen, A. M., & Fidel, R. (1998). A framework for work-centered evaluation and design: A case study of IR on the Web. Report for MIRA, Grenoble: France.
Rasmussen, J., Pejtersen, A. M, & Goodstein, L. P. (1994). Cognitive systems engineering. New York: Wiley.
Sanderson, P. M. (2003). Cognitive Work Analysis. In J. Carroll (Ed.), HCImodels, theories, and frameworks: Toward an interdisciplinary science. New York: Morgan-Kaufmann.
Vicente, K. J. (1999). Cognitive work analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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Hechter, M. (1987). Principles of group solidarity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Huberman, B. A., & Lukose, R. M. (1997). Social dilemmas and Internet congestion. Science, 277, 535—537.
Kollock, P. (1999). The production of trust in online markets. In E. J. Lawler, M. Macy, S. Thyne, & H. A. Walker (Eds.), Advances in group processes. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Kollock, P., & Smith, M. (1996). Managing the virtual commons: cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer mediated commu' nication: Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 226—242). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing.
Maynard-Smilh, J. (1998). Evolution and the theory of games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McAdam, D., & Paulson, R. (1993). Specifying the relation between social ties and activism. American Journal of Sociology, 99, 640-667'.
Murnighan, J. K., & Roth, A. E. (1983). Expecting continued play in prisoner's dilemma games. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2 7(2), 279—300.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective actum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Qoverning the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rabin, M. (1993). Incorporating fairness into game theory and economics. The American Economic Review, 83(5), 1281—1302.
Snow, D., Zürcher L., & Ekland-Olson, S. (1980). Social networks and social movements: A microstructural approach to differential recruitment. American Sociological Review, 45, 787—801.
Von Neumann, J., & Morganstern, O. (1944). The theory of games and economic hehav-ior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Yamagishi, T. (1995). Social dilemmas. In K. S. Cook, G. A. Fine, & J. S. House (Eds.), Sociological perspectives on social psychology (pp. 311—335). Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
Yamagishi, T. (1986). The Structural goal/expectation theory of cooperation in social dilemmas. In E. J. Lawler (Ed.), Advances in group processes (pp. 51—87). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
13
Communicative Action
Gerald Benoit Graduate School of Library and Information Science Simmons College, USA gerald.benoit@simmons.edu
The theory of communicative action is part of Jürgen Habermas's (b. 1928) long study of society and the loci of power within society. Originally part of the Frankfurt School's efforts to study Kantian reason within a Marxist environment, Habermas expanded some ideas found in Mead and Peirce to emphasize the theory of behavior and analysis of language. He theorizes that blind pursuit of rationality, inappropriate application of scientific methods, and philosophies of language that place issues of acceptability and truth outside the realm of actual speakers overlook the way people use language in the social sphere to reach understanding and coordinate action.
Indeed, most of Habermas's writings emphasize discourse ethics and the concept of justice in a democracy. For the study of information-seeking behavior his program is valuable for exploring language use, the host of influences upon speakers and hearers called the "life-world," the expression of cultural values, and, most significantly, providing a model for "communicative competence." Through his analysis of language, we see a model of how language can be used to control others, to bring out interpretations that favor one side over the other, to "distort communication" and "colonize" others' lifeworld by one's own agenda. He provides, too, an insight into ways we can examine language use to coordinate our actions with others and to expose efforts at colonization.
The foundation for his work is available in English as The Theory of Communicative Action, volumes I and 2. He applies his theory to episte-mology (Knowledge and Human Interests}, hermeneutics, legal systems (Between Facts and Norms), politics and modern life (The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity), etc. Certainly one sees the influences of pragmatism and critique of science in his work and it is for
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those reasons that his definitions of the behaviors that are "knowledge constitutive" are popular both in system design and in subjective decision making.
"Habermas differentiates three primary generic cognitive areas in which human interest generates knowledge. These areas determine cat-egories relevant to what we interpret as knowledge. That is, they are termed 'knowledge constitutive'—they determine the mode of discovering knowledge and whether knowledge claims can be warranted. These areas define cognitive interests or learning domains, and are grounded in different aspects of social existence—work, interaction and power" (Maclsaac, 2004). Habermas defines three types of knowledge:
1) Work — acting and using language "instrumentally," typically based in the empirical-analytic sciences
2) Practical — human social interaction, or communicative action, governed by consensual norms, reciprocal expectations, propositions are valid only "in their intersubjectivity of the mutual understanding of intentions," the historical-hermeneutic disciplines
3) Emancipatory — self-knowledge or reflection, involving recognizing one's own and others' motivations and the correct reasons for one's problems
Because the expansive theory is complex only parts have been tried in real-world situations, although his expression of speech acts is favored by some computer scientists and system analysts. One of the earliest proponents was Flores et al. (1986), whose "Coordinator" computer system analyzed speech acts of people working on a shared project. As part of computer-supported cooperative work and human-computer interaction, the theory has been appropriated to study the use of computers and cognition (Winograd & Flores, 1986) and the impact on office work (Auramaki, Lehtinen, & Lyytinen, 1988; De Michelis & Grasso, 1994; Dietz, 1994; Janson & Woo, 1995).
As pertains directly to information seeking and information behavior, the theory has been applied to (a) theories of meaning, (b) information transfer, and (c) information systems design. The goal of information seeking is to provide resources appropriate to the information seekers and it is the question of what is appropriate that makes the theory so
appealing. Casting information seeking as a communicative action raises questions of interpretation, meaning, truth, and responsible agency. For instance, information retrieval (IR) consists of a document collection, query representation, matching algorithm, and presentation (Baeza-Yates & Ribeiro-Neto, 1999). The behavior of the IR system is, to a critical theoretic reading, self-validating because the assertions made by the interaction (through the interface, the design decisions are made by the computer- or information scientist) are not warranted. Habermas's expression of speech act theory means each proposition is open to a shared method of evaluation, which supports the types of knowledge described above. Specifically, unless a speaker is intentionally trying to influence a hearer's interpretation or otherwise control the outcome, the "speaker" (both human or computer) must be willing to offer a warrant for the proposition that includes truth, truthfulness, sincerity, and normative right.
Such a perspective of information systems and information-seeking behavior raises the question of defining the actual object of information systems work. Adapting Garcia and Quek (1997), are information systems design and use technological or social issues? Does the information system's creation and use suggest an organization, a data system, or a social system? These questions, along with the empiricist foundation for justifying the use of decontextualized linguistic tokens and weighted frequencies for retrieval, raise concerns about the role of logic, meaning, and truth in information seeking (Peregrin, 1997; Benoít 1998).
Furthermore, the questions have sparked work on several specific facets: information transfer (Ferreira Novellino, 1998), human-computer interaction, interface design, and data models. Benoit (2001) demonstrated how speech act theory can be integrated into IR systems and the differences the model makes to end-user interpretation. By revealing relevance criteria through the interface, that is, including means to interact with the IR system in ways that play out the elements of speech acts Habermas recommends, end-users clarify linguistic confusions. By sharing the designer's decisions about system behavior and relevance evaluations, or—as Habermas would express it, providing the warrant—end-users can better avoid "distorted communication" to arrive at decisions appropriate for their own lifeworld.
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The theory is also related to reader-response theory, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and particularly pragmatics (On the Pragmatics of Communication). The issues Habermas raises about relevancy and consent inform one's reading of Putnam's fact/value dichotomy (2002), Quine's pursuit of truth (1990), and empiricism. Habermas's theory is also in opposition to Searle's model of speech acts and society (1969, 1998), and reading both provides insight into language that maps directly to IR evaluation.
In summary, the theory recommends itself to any arena of human-human and human-computer interaction where issues of meaning construction, social performance, and application of knowledge in the public sphere are valued. A close reading also provides an operationalized foundation for evaluating human-human and human-computer information behaviors.
Auramäki, E., Lehtinen, E., & Lyytinen, K. (1988). A speech-act-based office modeling approach. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 6(2), 126—152.
Baeza-Yates, R., & Ribeiro-Neto, B. (1999). Modern information retrieval. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Benoit, G. (1998). Information seeking as communicative action. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998). Dissertation Abstracts International, 59, 3258.
Benoit, G. (2001, January). Critical theory as a foundation for pragmatic information systems design. Information Research 6(2). Retrieved May 4, 2004, from http; //InforrflationR.net/ir/6-2/paper98.html
De Michelis, G., & Grasso, M. A. (1994). Situating conversations within the language/action perspective: the Milan conversation model. Proceedings of the 1994 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work (pp. 89—100). New York: ACM.
Dietz, T., & Stern, P. C. (1995). Toward a theory of choice: Socially embedded preference construction. Journal of SociO'Economics, 24, 261—279.
Ferreira Novellino, M. S. (1998). Information transfer considering the production and use contexts: Information transfer language. Retrieved May 3, 2004, from www.db.dk/Nyt/BibNyt/I998nr2/brazil.htm
Flores, E, Graves, M., Hartfield, B., & Winograd, T. (1988). Computer systems and the design of organizational interaction. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 6(2), 153-172.
Garcia, L., & Quek, F. (1997). Qualitative research in information systems: Time to be subjective? In A. S. Lee, J. Libenau, & J. I. DeGross (Eds.,), Information systems and qualitative research (pp. 542—568). London: Chapman and Hall. •
Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests. Boston: Beacon.
Habermas, J. (1984-1987). The theory of communicative action. T. McCarthy (Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1987). The philosophical discourse of modernity: Twelve lectures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1998). On the pragmatics of communication. (M. Cooke, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Janson, M. A., Woo, C. C, & Smith, L. D. (1993, August). Information systems development and communicative action theory. Information and Management, 25(2), 59-72.
Maclsaac, D. (1996). The critical theory of Jürgen Habermas. Retrieved May 3, 2004, from Buffalo State, State University of New York Web site: http://physicsed. buffalostate.edu/danowner/habcritthy.html
Oeller, W. (1998, November 19). Negotiation in interaction. Linguist List 9.1645.
Retrieved May 4, 2004, from www.hnguistlist.org/issues/9/9-I645.html Peregren, J. (1997). Language and its models: is model theory a theory of semantics?
Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic, 2(1), 1—23.
Putnam, H. (2002). The collapse of the fact/value dichotomy and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Quine, W. V (1990). Pursuit of truth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. London: Cambridge University.
Searle, J. R. (1998). Mind, language and society: Philosophy in the real world. New York: Basic.
Winograd, T, & Flores, F. (1998). Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
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14
Communities of Practice
Elisabeth Davies Faculty of Information and Media Studies The University of Western Ontario, Canada edavies2@uwo.ca
Communities of practice is social epistemology in two senses: First, communities of practice are where knowledge is created and resides (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and second, in pursuit of a common practice, individual members are attuned to one another. Learning is the focus of communities of practice, specifically, learning as social participation. Communities of practice theory originated in research into situated learning when educational anthropologist Jean Lave investigated cogni' tion (Lave, 1988). Lave discovered that people in everyday life, for exam-pie, shopping for groceries, use what they have learned—arithmetic—in different ways depending upon the particular situation they find themselves in. Cognition, according to Lave, is "distributed—stretched over, not divided among—mind, body, activity, and culturally organized settings (which include other actors)" (Lave, 1988, p. I).
When Lave teamed up with Etienne Wenger to write Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991), "communities of practice" were an integral part of their developing theory of situated learning. Individuals learn, they posited, through the process of becoming a full participant in a socioeultural practice, such as midwifery, meat-cutting, or attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Lave and Wenger identified "legitimate peripheral participation" as the way newcomers learn the practice in which they are engaged. Not only do newcomers learn to be practitioners from other members, the newcomers' identities are shaped as they learn the practice (Brown & Duguid, 1991).
Wenger went on to write Communities of Practice (1998) in order to expand on the idea of social learning. Essentially, a community of practice is the site where collective learning is accumulated into social practices (Wenger, 2000). Wenger (1998, 2000) asserts that in order for communities of practice to exist, three elements must be present:
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1) Members must understand what the community is for; that is, the members must feel a sense of joint enterprise and accountability.
2) Mutual engagement arises when members have time to build trust and relationships with one another through regular interactions.
3) Members will develop a shared repertoire of stories, language, etc. that embodies the distinctive knowledge of the community and allows members to negotiate meaning.
Because members are unlikely to identify themselves collectively as a community of practice, certain indicators can be used to help recognize a community of practice including: evidence of sustained relationships; rapid flow of information and propagation of innovation; knowing what others know, what they can do, and how they can contribute specific tools, representations, and other artifacts; shared stories, inside jokes; and a shared discourse reflecting a certain perspective on the world (Wenger, 1998).
There is no formula for creating a community of practice, no amount of time or number of members that is "right." Nor does there seem to be a limit to the number of communities of practice to which an individual can belong. Originally, communities of practice were described as informal groups and were not a synonym for a work group or team or unit, etc. This distinction has faded recently in some of Wenger's and other management-oriented writers' contributions to the business and management literature (e.g., Wenger, 2000) in which organizations are encouraged to nurture or even "create" communities of practice.
Wenger's social theory of learning is positioned at the intersection of social theories of meaning and power on one axis, and collectivity and subjectivity on another axis. This intersection bears the most resemblance to other theories such as symbolic interactionism, cultural-historical activity theory, and critical psychology.
Communities of practice are discussed in the field of Education, often towards the end of creating online communities in distance education. Davenport & Hall (2002) wrote a thorough literature review of the ways in which communities of practice have been used in the fields of Information Science and Knowledge Management, in particular.
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Information Science has recognized the community-building possibilities of the theory especially in studies of computer-supported cooperative work. The Knowledge Management field has also made wide use of the theory in both its theoretical and practitioner-oriented articles. Library Science's use of communities of practice has been less visible with the exception of the special libraries/knowledge management area.
Communities of practice have potential applications in two major streams of information behavior research: everyday life and professional or workplace studies. It might be argued that Library and Information Science (LIS) studies of professionals' information behavior have been applications of communities of practice theory before it was so named. Recent doctoral research focusing on a public defender's office (Hara, 2000) and humanities scholars (Neumann, 2002) are examples of the application of communities of practice theory in information behavior.
Following on Davenport & Cronin's (1998) call for LIS workplace studies to consider "the world of worker se, not [...] 'information seeking,' 'information needs,' 'information uses,' and 'information use environments' " (p. 266), the idea of situated learning and social practices could enter the LIS field through studies in which delineating preferred information channels and sources is not the main goal. Communities of practice theory is particularly strong for information behavior researchers in its focus on situatedness or context. The idea of overlapping communities and the various types of boundary work requires coexistence and cooperation, and the relationship between identity and practice, or being and doing.
Some issues that may discourage researchers include the difficulty in operationalizing important concepts. Very few concepts are defined straightforwardly, although they are described at length. The presence of seeming tautologies, for example "communities of practice produce their practice" (Wenger, 1998, p. 80) requires that the potential researcher accept the reflexivity both of the theory and of much of the writing about it.
Communities of practice were theorized following ethnographic research that included participant observation and interviewing. A community of practice is complex, multilayered, and sometimes geographically dispersed. It is fitting for a theory that recognizes the multiple viewpoints characteristic of participation in a community of practice to
rely heavily upon the methods of qualitative research. The phenomeno-logical underpinnings of qualitative research are clearest when acknowledging the multiple realities (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) of participants' lives. Information behavior researchers are committed to qualitative methods, so it seems reasonable to expect that, with the emergence of communities of practice theory in LIS doctoral research and the emphasis on the full range of work practices in workplace studies, communities of practice theory will be seen more often in future information behavior research.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40—57. Retrieved February 23, 2004, from www2.parc.com/ops/members/ brown /papers / orglearning. html.
Davenport, E., &Cronin, B. (1998). Some thoughts on "just for you" service in the context of domain expertise. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 39, 264-274.
Davenport, E., &Hall, H. (2002). Organizational knowledge and communities of practice. In B.Cronin (Ed.), Annual review of information science and technology, 36 (pp. 171-227). Medford, NJ: Information Today.
Hara, N. (2000). Social construction of knowledge in professional communities of practice: Tales in courtrooms (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2000). Dissertation Abstracts International, 61, 953.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Neumann, L. J. (2002). Communities of practice as information systems: Humanities scholars and information convergence. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2002), Dissertation Abstracts International, 62, 3607.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice: The key to knowledge strategy. In E. L. Lesser, M. A. Fontaine, & J. A. Slusher (Eds.), Knowledge and communities (pp. 3—51). Boston, MA: Butterworth Heinemann.
Cultural Models of Hall and Hofstede 109
15
Cultural Models of Hall and Hof stede
Anita Komlodi Department of Information Systems University of Maryland, USA komlodi@umbc.edu
Hall (1959,1966,1976,1984) and Hofstede (1980, 2001) derived two of the most popular models of culture. These models serve the purpose of describing a person's cultural context, usually in terms of communication and social relationships. Hofstede and Hall describe "culture" along sev-eral dimensions, which, in turn, constitute their models. Hofstede's approach originated from surveys with IBM employees around the world; Hall's work resulted from his international communication training experience and cultural anthropological research. While these culture models provide a good foundation for studying differences between groups, their inherent biases should be acknowledged. Both models have been developed in Western cultures and exhibit the biases of these cultures, except for one of Hofstede's dimensions described below.
Both models were developed to define dimensions along which cultures can be both described and differentiated. The models have been widely used in information technology fields (information systems, human-computer interaction) as the basis for comparing behavior across cultures. As an example, Callahan (2004) provides an overview of cultural differences impacting the use of technology and resulting variations in the design of user interfaces. However, the application of the theories in studies of information behavior (IB) has been limited, and very few cross-cultural comparisons of information-seeking behavior exist (Iivoneen & White, 2001; Duncker, 2002; Komlodi ct al. 2004). In the few studies that do exist, models of culture arc not considered when comparing behavior: the results are valuable for understanding variations in IB, but a basic understanding of cultural differences affecting IB is missing. Studying behavior from the cultural model starting point can enable researchers to
108
address this question in a novel, structured way, building on existing culture models to explore cultural differences in IB.
The level of context in communication is Hall's (1959, 1966, 1976, 1984) most often applied dimension. It examines how much information is conveyed by the circumstance of a given situation and the group's cultural unconscious and shared knowledge versus explicitly in the message itself. A high context culture places more emphasis on the unspoken meaning of a given situation than on the actual message (very little information is included in the communicated message). Cultures with low-context interaction place much more importance on the explicit message transmitted. Without including the complete message in this explicit transmission of information, the meaning is lost or vague. North American and Northern European cultures tend to be low context, where messages specify many details and not much information is assumed in the context. Hall's time dimension is also often applied. Time concepts vary greatly from culture to culture, and Hall defined the two extremes of this dimension: polychrome and monochrome. Polychronic time is a circular, renewable resource in which multiple happenings can take place at the same time. Every activity has its natural time to occur and deadlines are less important (or not important at all) than completing tasks. Monochrome time is linear, in which usually one event happens at a time. Deadlines are important and time is not renewable, once the time for an activity has passed it cannot be recovered. Time concepts of cultures impact the way tasks are planned and executed and so do action chains. Actions chains describe sequences of actions that need to be completed before a goal is accomplished. Both action chains themselves and adherence to them differ across cultural groups. The last two dimensions describe characteristics of communication in various groups. The speed of messages describes the frequency and pace of messages members of various cultures find acceptable. Some cultures are used to faster-paced messages than others. Television commercials play an important role in the United States and they create expectations of fast, short messages. If messages are communicated at a speed that the given culture is not used to, they may not achieve their desired effect. The dimension of information flow addresses how long it takes a message to travel through an organization and produce the desired effect. Hall's research demonstrated that high-context cultures, where relationships and information are valued more than schedules,
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Cultural Models of Hall and Hofstede 111
tend to have very fast information flow while low-context cultures tend to be much slower.
Hofstede (1980, 2001) developed a cultural model consisting of five dimensions that seek to differentiate culture. Power distance describes perceptions of equality and inequality by members of various cultures. A low power distance society tends to be considerably more open to challenging the status quo of superiors. People in a low power distance culture deemphasize socio-economic differences. The high power distance society tends to support inequality within the society. The dimension of individualism! collectivism ranks cultures based on the individual or collectivis-tic orientations of their members. In individualistic societies, goals and accomplishments center around the individual, while in collectivistic societies the common goal and collaborative action dominate. In groups oriented toward collectivistic goals, the individual is sheltered by the group and owes loyalty to it. Uncertainty avoidance describes the "extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations" (Hofstede 1981, p. 113). Members of cultures ranking high on this dimension do not tolerate situations with limited information and embedded vagueness and they seek certainty and long-term planning. Members of groups with low uncertainty avoidance figures do not become anxious when faced with uncertain situations and lack of rules. The feminine/masculine orientation of a culture speaks to the value system of a culture. Cultures with a masculine orientation emphasize values that have traditionally been related to the male gender role in Western cultures: masculine assertivcncss and competition, career advancement, and financial accomplishment. Cultures ranking high on the femininity index place in the center those values traditionally associated with the female role: nurturance, family, concern for relationships, and quality of life. Finally, long/short-term orientation of societies describes future- versus history-orientation of the society. This final dimension was added later and was aimed at reducing the Western bias of the model. This dimension is based on Confucius' teaching and at the long-term end of the scale includes values such as persistence, thrift, respect of status, and a sense of shame. At the other end of the scale, there is personal steadiness and stability, protecting "face," respect for tradition, and reciprocation of greetings and favors.
Information seeking and use are important user tasks supported by computerized information systems. There is a long tradition of studying IB in electronic environments, however, the study of the impact of end-user national culture on the use of information systems to find, retrieve, and use information is very limited. This area of research is becoming more and more important as the users of many search systems access electronic systems from all over the world and often have to use the same user interface (e.g., Web search engines, online database systems). As noted at the beginning of this paper, the existing cross-cultural studies of IB often do not consider culture models. The application of these models to the study of IB has been limited, however, they are more often used in related fields.
Hofstede's model is popular among scholars of information systems and human-computer interaction. Researchers of information technology have applied Hofstede's theory to studying cultural differences in the management and classification of information systems, although cultural comparisons in information systems development, operations, and use have received limited attention (Ford et al., 2003). Cross-cultural usability experts applied Hofstede's dimensions to the design and understanding of user interfaces (e.g., Evers, 2001) and Web design (e.g., Gould & Marcus, 2000). Even though culture models have been applied in these related fields, they were often not considered in the cultural comparisons of IB.
Two attempts at relating culture models to IB and identifying potential interactions between them have been identified. Steinwachs (1999) examined the impact of culture on four elements of IB: the sender, the recipient, the information itself, and the channel of communication. She applied Hofstede's first four dimensions to study these elements. She concluded that all these elements of IB are deeply embedded in the cultural context and thus impacted by it, and provided recommendations to information intermediaries based on cultural differences in IB. In recent research (Komlodi & Carlin, in press) we relate both Hofstede's and Hall's models to an abstract model of information seeking to identify potential areas of impact. Strong and weak potential impact areas of cultural dimensions on information-seeking steps were identified. The previously discussed applications of culture models to the study of IB are proposed as the foundation for future cross-cultural studies of IB.
Cultural comparisons of IB can greatly benefit from the application of culture theories, as these help not just identify but also explain potential
112 Theories of Information Behavior
areas of differences in IB. Most of the existing cross-cultural IB research reports differences in behavior, without examining cultural variables to identify why these differences occur. A more thorough study of the impact of culture on IB will lead to deeper understanding of behavior and enable the designers of search systems to create interfaces that will be more usable by users from different cultural backgrounds.
Evers, V. (2001). Cultural aspects of user interface understanding. Doctoral Dissertation. Institute of Educational Technology, the Open University, London, England.
Callahan, E. (2004). Interface design and culture. In B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual review of information science & technology, 39 (pp. 257-310) Medford, NJ: Information Today.
Duncker, E. (2002). Cross-cultural usability of the library metaphor. Proceedings of
the IBBEJACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL '02), 223-230. Ford, D. P., Connelly C. E., & Meister, D. B. (2003). Information systems research and
Hoftsede's Culture's Consequences: An uneasy and incomplete partnership. IEEE
Transactions on Engineering Management, 50(1), 8—25. Gould, E., & Marcus A. (2000). Crosscurrents: Cultural dimensions and global Web
user-interface design. Interactions, 7(4), 32—46. Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Hall, E. T. (1966). The hidden dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Hall, E. T. (1984). The dance of life: The other dimension of time. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday.
Hofstede, G. H. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values (Ist ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. H. (2001). Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institU' tions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
Iivonen, M., & White, M. D. (2001). The choice of initial web search strategies: A comparison between Finnish and American searchers. Journal of Documentation 57, 465-191.
Komlodi, A., Weimin H., Jofoldi, H., Kessel, R., Riggs, T, Liang, C, & Haidar, T. (2004). Cross-cultural comparison of Web searching behavior. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Proceedings of the 15 th international conference of the information resources management association (pp. II69-II70) Hershey, PA: IRM Press.
Komlodi, A., & Carlin, M. (in press). Identifying cultural variables in information-seeking behavior. Americas Conference on Information Systems 2004, New York, NY.
Steinwachs, K. (1999). Information and culture: The impact of national culture on information processes based on the theories of sociologist Geert Hofstede. Journal of Information Science, 25, 193-204.
16
Dervin's Sense-Making
Tonyia J. Tidline School of Library and Information Studies University of Alabama, USA ttidline@slis.ua.edu
Brenda Dervin's Sense-Making is a conceptual tool of broad applicability for use in understanding the relationship of communication, information, and meaning. Sense-Making, (capitalized to distinguish the methodology from "sense making," which encompasses the phenomenon of making and unmaking sense) is integral to understanding how human beings derive meaning from information. In library and information science (LIS), Sense-Making methodology is associated with a shift in research emphasis from information sources to information users (Dalrymple, 2001). This shift was accomplished by conceiving of "information seeking and use" as "modes of communication practice" (Savolainen, 1993, p. 13).
Within various disciplines, including Communication and LIS, the methodology has been used to study information seeking associated with myriad settings and services, including libraries, information systems, media systems, Web sites, public information campaigns, classrooms, and counseling services. Sense-Making has also served to help understand intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, organizational, national, and global communication practices, and has been used in tandem with con-structivist, critical, cultural, feminist, postmodern, and communitarian research viewpoints (see Sense-Making Methodology Site in the references at the end of the chapter).
Sense-Making frequently has been operationalized through time-line and neutral questioning interview techniques. The former asks participants to describe their information-seeking sequence and analyzes the results using the situation-gaps-uses schema traditionally connected with the methodology. The latter—neutral interview strategy—guides users in expressing information needs in their own (instead of the information professional's) words, and has been applied to reference interview models.
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Dervin's Sense-Making  115
(For a succinct description of the significance of "situations-gaps-uses" and neutral interviewing techniques in LIS, see Savolainen,I993.)
Sense-Making has come a long way since its introduction to LIS. An early, frequently cited Sense-Making study deemed it useful for delineating situations, gaps, and "everyday" needs associated with information seeking and use (Dervin, 1976). Ten years later, the methodology was central to a call for a "paradigm shift" to invoke the user (rather than system) point of view in information-seeking research (Dervin & Nilan, 1986). At the end of the last century, Sense-Making was touted as a "mature" methodology, accompanied by a recommended suite of data collection and analysis techniques. Most recently and specifically related to LIS is a growing interest in "information behavior," and the methodology has been directed toward understanding contexts and processes of information need, seeking, and use. Progressing from early analysis of the situations, gaps, and uses surrounding a human information "need," the methodology now stresses verbing (Dervin, 1993), which could allow LIS scholars to transcend simple classification and achieve holistic understanding of information activity.
Sense-Making has great utility for shifting researchers' focus from categorization to process, a focus that might better reflect the intricacies of information behavior. The concept of information behavior transforms distinct notions of need, seeking, and use into unified investigation of the processes by which people become informed. Interest in information process has been accompanied by growing interest in context, as reflected in the growing area of "Information Seeking in Context" (Kuhlthau, 1999; Talja, Keso, & Pietilainen, 1999) and in the recognition that human beings do not compartmentalize their lives, expressed in Savolainen's (1995) concept of Everyday Life Information Seeking.
The Sense-Making methodology stresses individual rather than collective understanding. As a result, Sense-Making may seem to be inadequate for explaining group and organizational information exchange and communication processes. However, any misapprehension that Sense-Making is limited to individual "cognition" can be alleviated by a review of current Sense-Making tenets, which are extensive in their consideration of the dynamic influence of time, space, cognition, affect, power, culture, and individual and collaborative Sense-Making.
Any difficulty in understanding the scope and promise of Sense-Making for LIS research might not be located with the principles it entails, but with understanding how to operationalize the methodology for studying group activity. Certainly past focus on scripted interviews used for collecting and analyzing data from individuals could contribute to this circumstance. Using various approaches might alleviate such difficulties. Specifically, "qualitative" or interpretive research allows for the methodology to be applied in ways that foster broader application. By combining Sense-Making with other theories and expanding ideas about how to study and report information behavior, LIS researchers can use the methodology to its maximum advantage. For example, some other theories that fit naturally with Sense-Making principles include Erdelez's Information Encountering; Miller's Monitoring and Blunting; Nahl's Affective Load; Hall's Cultural Model; and sense making as developed in accordance with the work of Wieck and Checkland.
Sense-Making methodology offers a structure for deciphering information behavior. Its principles, particularly its emphasis on verbing, can accommodate multiple variables (those of time, space, affiliation, or affinity) easily neglected in information seeking and use research. The methodology has typically been associated with structured interview methods (even "neutral" questioning enforces a framework of discussion), which short-circuit its interpretive potential. Despite its customary alliance with certain perspectives and methods, Sense-Making can be paired with other epistemological agendas. Interpretive (as opposed to the less useful term "qualitative"; see Hathaway, 1995) research using narrative analysis is one way to maximize Sense-Making's explanatory power.
For example, the concept of bricolage enables researchers to blend an array of strategies ideal for deciphering the complexities of information behavior (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998; Kinchloc, 2001). Bricolage requires the researcher to draw on a deep understanding of the vast store of research philosophies and methods and select those best suited to her research aims of the moment. In the recent research study by Tidline (2003) on the information properties of visual art, Sense-Making methodology offered the best framework for learning and reporting how people can be informed by art. The traditional models of Sense-Making with their prescribed interview structure did not fit the enlarged depiction of
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information behavior reflected in the study. However, fitting narrative analysis with Sense-Making principles, operationalized through open-ended interviews, allowed the researcher to capitalize on the human "proclivity to organize experience in terms of plots" (Ochs & Capps, 1996, p. 26).
A mixture of Sense-Making, narrative analysis, and reflexive assessment could contribute to organic understanding of human information behavior. This is because, as Dervin claims "a focus on verbings offers a different entry for the search for systematic understandings of the human condition. Instead of focusing on elusive, ever-changing and constantly challenged nouns, Sense-Making mandates a focus on the hows (emphasis added) of human individual and collective Sense-Making and sense-unmaking, on the varieties of internal and external cognizings, emot-ings, feelings, and communicatings that make, reinforce, challenge, resist, alter, and reinvent human worlds" (1999, p. 731). Verbing compels that we emphasize the process of being informed instead of persistently trying to define information as a discrete entity (or noun). Because humans tell stories that reveal cognitive and affective motivations and contextualize information behavior, Sense-Making and narrative analysis offer potential for discovering new vistas of information behavior.
Corbin J. M., & Strauss, A. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and pro-ceduresfor developing grounded theory (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dalrymple, P. W. (2001). A quarter century of user-centered study: The impact of Zweizig and Dervin on LIS research. Library and Information Science Research, 23(2), 155-65.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1998). The landscape of qualitative research: Theories and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dervin, B. (1983, May). An overview of Sense-Making research: Concepts, methods, and results to date. Paper presented at the International Communication Association Annual Meeting, Dallas.
Dervin, B. (1992). From the mind's eye of the user: The Sense-Making qualitative-quantitative methodology. In J. D. Glazier, & R. R. Powell (Eds.), Qualitative research in information management (pp. 61—84). Engiewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Dervin, B. (1993). Verbing communication: Mandate for disciplinary invention. Journal of Communication, 43(3), 0021—9916.
Dervin, B. (1999). On studying information seeking methodologically: The implications of connecting metatheory to method. Information Processing and Management 35, 727-750.
Dervin, B., & Foreman-Wernet, L., Eds. (2003). Sense-Making Methodology reader:
Selected writings ofBrenda Dervin. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Dervin, B., & Nilan, M. (1986). Information needs and uses. Annual Review of
Information Science and Technology, 21, 19—38. Hathaway, R. S. (1995). Assumptions underlying quantitative and qualitative research:
implications for institutional research. Research in Higher Education, 36,
535-562.
Kincheloe, J. L. (2001). Describing the bricolage: Conceptualizing anew rigor in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 679—692.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 19-43.
Savolainen, R. (1993). The Sense-Making theory: Reviewing the interests of a user-centered approach to information seeking and use. Information Processing & Management, 29, 13—28.
Savolainen, R. (1995). Everyday life information seeking: Approaching information seeking in the context of "way of life." Libraries & Information Science Research, 17, 259-294.
Sense-Making Methodology Site. Retrieved March 17,2004, from http://communication.
sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/default.html Talja, S., Keso, H., & Pietiläinen, T. (1999). The production of context in information
seeking research:  A  metatheoretical view.  Information Processing and
Management, 35, 751—763.
Tidline, T. J. (2003) Making sense of art as information. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
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Spink, A., Wilson, T. D., Ford, N. J., Foster A., & Ellis, D. (2002a). Information seeking and mediated searching: Part I. Background and research design. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53, 2002, 695-703.
Spink, A., Wilson, T. D., Ford, N. J., Foster A., & Ellis, D. (2002b). Information seeking and mediated searching: Part III. Successive searching. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53, 2002, 716—727.
Wilson, T. D., & Allen, D. K., Eds. (1999). Exploring the contexts of information behaviour. (ISIC II. Proceedings of the second International Conference on Research on Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, August 1998, Sheffield, UK.). London: Taylor Graham.
Wilson, T. D., Ford, N. J., Ellis, D., Foster, A., & Spink, A. (2002). Information seeking and mediated searching: Part II. Uncertainty and its correlates. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53, 2002, 704—715.
22
Everyday Life Information Seeking
Reijo Savolainen Department of Information Studies University of Tampere, Finland Reijo.Savolainen@uta.fi
The model of information seeking in the context of way of life (ELIS model) was developed in the mid-1990s hy Reijo Savolainen (see Savolainen, 1995). The development of the model was primarily motivated by the need to elaborate the role of social and cultural factors that affect people's way of preferring and using information sources in everyday settings. It was hypothetised that even though individuals select and use various sources to solve problems or make sense of their everyday world, the source preferences and use patterns are ultimately socially conditioned. Thus, an attempt was made to approach the phenomena of ELIS as a combination of social and psychological factors.
The development of the ELIS model was also motivated by the elaboration of terminological issues of information-seeking studies and the need to specify the nature of ELIS, as compared to job-related information seeking. Although the model emphasizes the legitimate nature of the nonwork contexts, this was not interpreted as an attempt to create a dichotomy between the processes of job-related and "other" information seeking because job-related information seeking and ELIS complement each other.
The central point of departure of the model is way of life, which provides a broad context for investigation of individual and social factors affecting ELIS. Way of life is approached by drawing on the idea of habu tus developed by Bourdieu (1984). Habitus can be defined as a socially and culturally determined system of thinking, perception, and evaluation, internalized by the individual. Habitus is a relatively stable system of dispositions by which individuals integrate their experiences and evaluate the importance of different choices, for example, the preference of information sources and channels. Savolainen (1995) defined the concept of way of life as "order of things," which is based on the choices that
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Everyday Life Information Seeking  145
individuals make, ultimately oriented by the factors constituting habi-tus. "Things" stand for various activities taking place in the daily life world, including not only job but also necessary reproductive tasks such as household care and voluntary activities (hobbies); "order" refers to preferences given to these activities. Correspondingly, people have a "cognitive order" indicating their perceptions of how things are when they are "normal." Through their choices individuals have practically engaged in a certain order of things, and it is in their interest to keep that order as long as they find it meaningful.
The major factors that may be used to operationalize the concept of way of life include the structure of time budget, described as a relation between working and leisure time; models of co7isumption of goods and services; and the nature of hobbies. Because the meaningful order of things might not reproduce itself automatically, individuals are required to take active care of it. This care may be called mastery of life; it is associated with pragmatic problem solving, especially in cases where the order of things has been shaken or threatened. Mastery of life is a general preparedness to approach everyday problems in certain ways in accordance with one's values. Information seeking is an integral component of mastery of life, which aim is to eliminate a continual dissonance between perceptions of "how things are at this moment" and "how they should be." Savolainen (1995) defined four major types of mastery of life (see Figure 22.1):
1) Optimistic-cognitive mastery of life is characterized by a strong reliance on positive outcomes for problem solving. Because problems are primarily conceived as cognitive, systematic information seeking from different sources and channels is indispensable.
2) Pessimistic-cognitive mastery of life approaches problem solving in a less ambitious way: There are problems that might not be solved optimally. Despite this the individual may be equally systematic in problem solving and in the information seeking which serves it.
3) Defensive-affective mastery of life is grounded on optimistic views concerning the solvability of the problem; however, in problem solving and information seeking affective factors
dominate. This means that the individual may avoid situations implying a risk of failure and requirements to actively seek information.
4) Pessimistic-affective mastery of life can be crystallized in the expression of "learned helplessness." The individual does not rely on his or her abilities to solve every day life problems. Systematic information seeking plays no vital role because emotional reactions and short-sightedness dominate problem-solving behavior.
EVERYDAY LIFE
WAY OF LIFE
("order of things")
"time budget 'consumption models "hobbies
MASTERY OF LIFE
("keeping things in order")
Main type of mastery of life
• optimistic-cognitive
• pessimistic-cognitive
• defensive-affective
• pessimistic-affective
I
"Project of life" • specific projects of everyday life
Problematic situations of everyday life *
PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIOR (including everyday life information seeking)
» evaluation of the importance of problem at hand
■ selection of information sources and channels
• seeking orienting and practical information
Situational *-\ factors (e.g., lack
of time)
values,
attitudes
(meanings)
material capita
(money, etc.)
socia capital (contact networks)
cultural and
cognitive
capital
current situation of life (e.g., health)
Figure 22. i   The ELIS model.
146 Theories of Information Behavior
Everyday Life Information Seeking  147
The model suggests that way of life ("order of things") and mastery of life ("keeping things in order") determine each other. Values, conceptions, and the current phase of life affect way of life and mastery of life. Equally important is the material, social, and cultural (cognitive) capital owned by the individual, providing "basic equipment" to seek and use information. The distribution of the different kinds of capital in relation to capital owned by others determines the total value of the material, social, and cultural capital, thus determining the basic conditions of way of life and mastery of life. However, way of life or mastery of life does not determine how a person seeks information in individual situations. As a constellation of everyday activities and their mutual valuation, way of life provides only general criteria for preferring and using various sources and channels so that the preferences are natural or even self-evident in the light of earlier choices. Similarly, mastery of life describes the tendency to adopt a certain information-seeking strategy in problem-solving situations. Hence, it is necessary also to devote attention to the specific features of the problem situation, for example, the repertoire of information sources available and the acute-ness of the problem.
Savolainen (1995) utilized the above model in an empirical study conducted in Finland. The study focused on two groups, representing middle and working class. The study revealed that the habitus-related differences between social classes proved to be quite as expected regarding the nature of work, relationships between work and leisure, and nature of hobbies. The most distinctive differences were found in the nature of hobbies. The consumption models were more distinctive in the purchase of books, magazines, and newspapers. The empirical study strengthened the assumption that way of life directs information seeking in a significant way. Teachers were more eager to seek factual information from various media, and they took a more critical stand toward the supply of light entertainment from radio, television, newspapers, and magazines. However, the study also revealed that personal interest and current life situation affect media use. There appeared to be teachers not particularly interested in the culture or politics sections of newspapers; similarly, some workers preferred documentaries and other serious programs and took a critical view of entertainment.
In the case of seeking practical information the link to way of life appeared to be less evident, because this kind of ELIS is contextualized in specific problem-solving situations. Both workers and teachers preferred informal sources, primarily personal communication, whereas the utilization of formal channels remained surprisingly low. The teachers differed from workers most markedly regarding the utilization of contact networks. The concept of way of life was also used in Savolainen (1999), a study on the ways in which people prefer the Internet in ELIS. These studies indicated that qualitative methods (semistructured theme interviews and narratives of critical incidents) are most preferable since the analysis of the complex relationships between way of life, mastery of life, and information seeking requires nuanced and context-sensitive empirical data.
The ideas behind the ELIS model are related to a number of other models and theories. For example, Chatman's (2000) theory of normative behavior crystallizing the findings of her long research project and Williamson's (1998) ecological model of everyday life information seeking are relevant in this sense. The ELIS model has been cited widely as one of the approaches focusing on the specific issues of everyday life information seeking (e.g., Given, 2002; McKenzie, 2003; Pettigrew, Fidel & Bruce, 2001).
In summary, the ELIS model provides a holistic framework for social and psychological factors affecting people's source preferences in everyday contexts. The model coidd be developed by elaborating the concept of mastery of life and validating the types of mastery of life. For example, the types of mastery of life could be investigated empirically in relation to people's context-sensitive perceptions of their information-related competencies (Savolainen, 2002). In addition, the relationships between way of life, mastery of life, and ELIS could be thematized more clearly from the social constructionist viewpoint: how do people position themselves as information seekers and users in discourse and how do they construct the issues of way of life and mastery of life as contextual factors affecting ELIS?
Bourdicu, P. (1984). Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge.
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Chatman, E. A. (2000). Framing social life in theory and research. The New Review of
Information Behaviour Research, 1, 3—17. Given, L. M. (2002). The academic and the everyday: investigating the overlap in
mature undergraduates' information-seeking behavior. Library and Information
Science Research, 24, 17—29. McKenzie, P. j. (2003). A model of information practices in accounts of everyday life
information seeking. Journal of Documentation, 59, 19—40. Pettigrew, K., Fidel, R., & Bruce, H. (2001). Conceptual frameworks in information
behavior. In M.E. Williams (Ed.), Annual review of information science and technology, 35 (pp. 43-78). Medford, NJ: Information Today. Savolainen, R. (1995). Everyday life information seeking: Approaching information
seeking in the context of "way of life." Library and Information Science Research,
1 7, 259-294.
Savolainen, R. (1999). Seeking and using information from the Internet: The context of non-work use. In T. D. Wilson & K. Allen (Eds.), Exploring the contexts of information behaviour (pp. 356-370). London: Taylor Graham.
Savolainen, R. (2002). Network competence and information seeking on the Internet: From definitions towards a social cognitive model. Journal of Documentation, 58, 211-226.
Williamson, K. (1998). Discovered by chance. The role of incidental information acquisition in an ecological model of information use. Library & Information Science Research, 20, 23-40.
23
Face Threat
Lorri Mon The Information School University of Washington, USA lmon@u. Washington. edu
Erving Goffman, an influential sociologist, explored the presentation of the self in social interactions, which has implications for the study of human behavior in intermediated information-seeking contexts. His work on face threat is encompassed within the larger body of his life's work in investigating the micro-sociology of face-to-face interactions to make visible the interaction order of interpersonal behavior in public and "behind the scenes." The performative aspects of self-presentation in Goffman's work have been described as dramaturgy, while the cognitive aspects of how individuals understand their expected roles within a situation and activity are discussed as frame analysis.
Goffman theorized that during all interpersonal interactions, individuals are engaged in a process of "impression management"—strategic maneuvers to obtain, share, or hide information that is either supportive to or destructive of a desired public self-image or "face." Goffman (1971) described the personal information that individuals control about themselves while in interaction with others as the "information preserve."
Goffman (1955) defined "face" as the public image of the self as indicated through socially approved attributes in accordance with expected social roles and behaviors. An individual's "face" is socially constructed through perceptions of both the individual and others. It is created from observations of behavior and other available evidence, and can be damaged by "face threatening acts," which attack or undermine the individual's positive public self-image. Threats to "face" include perceptions of loss of autonomy (being perceived by the self or others as unable or incapable) and perceptions of failure to maintain one's expected social role (and thus being perceived as having misrepresented the self). Threats range from direct and intentional attacks to unintended and subtle implications through
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words or actions that challenge an individual's preferred role or publicly presented "face."
Threats or attacks on "face" must be countered through "face work." Goffman (1955) described "face work" as encompassing both the strategic ritual work in interpersonal interactions, which is designed to avoid damage to the "public face" of self and others, and also the remedial ritual work designed to repair damage to the projected self-image once a "loss of face" has occurred. Explanations and apologies are part of the ritual work of repairing "face threatening acts" in interpersonal interactions. Thus, the appearance of apologies or defensive explanations from users during feedback on information systems or interactions with information intermediaries can be seen as indicators signaling potential problems of "face threat" occurring in systems or services.
Tracy and Tracy (1998, 2002) used Goffman's concepts of "frame" and "face threat" in communications research as a framing theory for exploring information-gathering interactions between callers and 911 emergency calltakers. Questioning in the informational interview process was observed to present problems of face threat. Mokros, Mull ins, and Saracevic (1995) utilized Goffman's work in information science as an influence in building a microanalytic approach for studying videotaped interactions between users and search intermediaries. Chatman (1999) referred to Goffman's work on the presentation of the self in interpreting the information behavior of women in a maximum-security prison. The theory was particularly useful for examining information behavior in discursive interactions.
Interactions are understood within contextual and socially determined frames of reference, within which some information is "framed in" while other information is "framed out." Mismatches between frames may cause interactional problems and misunderstandings between participants. Frames, roles, and shared societal understandings determine expectations and definitions of the activity and the situation, the etiquette of attention and inattention to actions and information, the ing of strategic secrets in terms of information considered public or private, and how self-presentations are adapted to the existing information conditions in which they are performed.
Individuals engage in activities in situational contexts framed by expectations and social roles. Information seeking often occurs as a social
activity within which the participants interact in defined roles such as information seeker ("patron," "user") and intermediary ("librarian," "expert"). The interaction is "framed" within each participant's expectations about the setting ("library"), participants' socially defined roles, and the appropriate actions for the encounter. Individuals may maintain multiple different public roles or "selves" at any one time, selectively presenting the "self" or performing the role appropriate for each particular audience. Individuals also may experience role conflict when audiences converge, and may chafe at or avoid information-seeking activities that require enacting face-threatening roles considered "beneath" them (such as "library patron" rather than "professor").
The face threat theory also offers strong potential for use in the study of online information behavior. Goffman (1961) described the "virtual" nature of the self and of the presentation of multiple different "selves" in differing contexts. Online information systems and services offer possibilities of designing self-presentation methods to better meet users' needs for controling public access to personal information. Designs that incorporate anonymity for users may offer new opportunities for reducing "face threat" in online interpersonal information-seeking interactions.
Goffman's face threat theory is compatible with discourse analysis and a micro-analytic approach that focuses on roles within the information-seeking interaction, situated activities, and overlapping or mismatched frames of reference. Grounded theory may be used in developing a contextually appropriate analysis of emergent factors and themes within the information-seeking interaction. While the theory has been applied in other fields, such as communications research, psychology, and sociology, despite the acknowledged influence of Goffman's works on various information science researchers (Chatman, 1999; Tuominen & Savolainen, 1997; Solomon, 1997; Mokros, Mullins & Saracevic, 1995), it has not yet been extensively utilized or tested within the information science field.
The Goffman face threat theory is most promising to research involving interpersonal interactions within information-seeking contexts which involve discourse. Information-seeking behaviors in intermediation have long been an area of interest to information science. Research has explored user behavior and intermediation interactions in libraries and other information-seeking contexts with a focus on understanding
keep
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issues such as dissatisfaction, nonuse, and nonusers. Incorporating the "face threat" theoretical framework for examining information-seeking interactions woidd allow researchers to explore elements of information systems and services that may have unintended consequences in reducing demand and alienating users.
Brown, P., & Lcvinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage.
New York: Cambridge University Press. Chatman, E. A. (1999). A theory of life in the round. Journal for the American Society
for Information Science, 50, 207—217. Goffman, E. (1955). On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction.
Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 18(3), 213-231. Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. New
York: Macmillan.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York:
Anchor Books.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
Mokros H., Mullins, L. S., & Saracevic, T. (1995). Practice and personhood in professional interaction: Social identities and information needs. Library & Information
Science Research, 1 7, 237—257.
Solomon, P. (1997). Conversation in information-seeking contexts: A test of an analytical framework. Library & Information Science Research, 19, 217-248.
Tracy, K., & Tracy, S. J. (1998). Rudeness at 911. Human Communication Research, 25, 225-251.
Tracy, S. J. (2002). When questioning turns to face threat: An interactional sensitivity in 911 call-taking. Western Journal of Communication, 66(2), 129—157.
Tuominen, K., & Savolainen, R. (1997). A social constructionist approach to the study of information use as discursive action. In P. Vakkari, R. Savolainen, & B. Dervin (Eds.), Information seeking in context: Proceedings of an international conference on research in information needs, seeking and use in different contexts (pp. 81-96). London: Taylor Graham.
24
Flow Theory
Charles Naumer The Information School University of Washington, USA Naumer@u.was hington.edu
Flow Theory, developed by Milialy Csikszentmihalyi, seeks to explain a mental state that occurs when a person becomes intensely engaged and absorbed in an activity. People in this mental state report experiencing feelings of great enjoyment and fulfillment. This theory has been applied in a number of fields as a way of improving human experience and increasing engagement in activities.
Csikszentmihalyi's research has focused on the study of what makes people happy, satisfied, and fulfilled, as well as the study of creativity and the qualities of experience associated with creativity. His work has focused on better understanding the nature of human experience as it relates to positive aspects of human behavior. Csikszentmihalyi is one of the pioneers in the field of positive psychology and the study of optimal human functioning. Positive psychology deviates from the prevailing model of categorization and treatment of human pathology by focusing inquiry on describing positive human experiences, such as optimism, well-being, hope, happiness, passion, and creativity. By understanding these aspects of human experience, positive psychology aims to inform the advancement and development of healthy individuals, families, and communities (Snyder, 2002).
Csikszentmihalyi created the theory of flow in the 1970s while attempting to develop a better understanding of the age-old question of when people feel the happiest (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). His research on this topic led him to conclude that happiness is largely dependent on how people interpret the events of their lives. Happiness is not the result of external forces but of internal forces. Therefore, he contends that happiness can be cultivated and developed by learning to control inner experience. His research findings indicate that people who are able to control
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their inner experience are best able to determine the quality of* their lives (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
Csikszentmihalyi's research examines the qualities of experience that lead to happiness and identifies conditions of optimal experience, which he defines as "flow." The mental state of flow is defined as a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. In this mental state, the experience itself is so enjoyable that peo-pic will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). The qualities of optimal experience are described as "a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p 3). These moments occur when "a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 3). Thus, optimal experience is something that is created or made to happen by an individual. Examples of people being in a state of flow include surgeons performing surgery, rock climbers scaling a mountain, or musicians performing a difficult piece of music.
To study flow, a new method was developed to measure the quality of subjective experience called the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). This technique involves asking people to wear an electronic paging device for a week and to write down how they feel and what they are thinking about whenever the pager signals (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). The pager is activated about eight times each day at random intervals. Flow theory was based on studying over a hundred thousand such core sections of experience from different parts of the world.
Csikszentmihalyi's studies found that every flow activity provided a sense of discovery engendering a creative feeling of transporting the per-son into a new reality. In this mental state, the person was pushed to higher levels of performance leading to previously undreamed-of states of consciousness. The result of this experience meant that the self was transformed into a more complex entity 1
Two of the most theoretically important dimensions of the experience arc challenges and skills as represented on the two axes of Figure 24.1. The diagram demonstrates that when a person is engaging in a new task his or her skill level will be low and the challenge needed to engage the
person will also be low for flow to occur. However, as the person's skill level increases the level of challenge will need to increase in order for the person to maintain a sense of flow. Conditions of flow will occur when there is a balance between the level of challenge and the required skill. Otherwise, when the level of challenge exceeds a person's skill level then anxiety may occur. Conversely, when the skill level exceeds the level of challenge then boredom may occur.
The relationship between challenge level and skill level is the second of eight conditions that Csikszentmihalyi identifies as making up the flow experience. These conditions are: I) clear goals and immediate feedback; 2) equilibrium between the level of challenge and personal skill; 3) merging of action and awareness; 4) focused concentration; 5) sense of potential control; 6) loss of self-consciousness; 7) altered sense
(Low) SkillS (High)
Figure 24.1   How the complexity of consciousness increases as a result of flow experiences.
Note: From Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (p. 74), by
M. Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, New York: Harper & Row. Copyright 1990 by Harper & Row. Adapted with permission,
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of time; and 8) experience becoming autotelic or self-rewarding (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993).
In addition to informing academic research, flow theory has been widely applied in a number of different fields. Educators have adopted Flow Theory as a means of informing teaching practices and developing effective learning environments that encourage learners to become highly engaged. Business leaders have used flow to develop management practices and business processes that facilitate high level engagement, as well as to develop products and services that are appealing to customers. The concept of flow has also been used as a way of rehabilitating juvenile delinquents, designing museum exhibits, and organizing activities in old people's homes (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
In the field of information science, the theory of flow has been mostly applied to system use and design. Several studies in the field of human computer interaction address issues regarding flow and user's interaction with computers. One such study examines users' flow experiences while surfing the Web (Chen, 1999). Another study examines information systems and their affect on quality of life (Artz, 1996). Of particular interest to information behavior may be Csikszentmihalyi's discussion of information theory and how new information that is processed by individuals creates either order or disorder in consciousness. He contends that if a piece of information creates order in consciousness, it supports conditions of flow and if it creates disorder in consciousness it inhibits flow from occurring (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
Flow theory's approach to the qualitative aspects of information behavior may be very useful in understanding human-information interaction. In addition to its application for system design it may also be useful in understanding information behavior in everyday contexts. The flow model and ESM methodology for studying human experience may facilitate further exploration into the aspects of experience that impact information behavior.
Artz, J. M. (1996). Computers and the quality of life: Assessing flow in information systems. SIQCAS Computing Society, 26, 7—12.
Chen, H., Wigand, R. T., &Nilan, M. (1999). Flow experiences on the Web. Computers in Human Behavior, 15, 454—608.
1
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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1982). Towards a psychology of optimal experience. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Annual Review of Psychology and Social Psychology, 3, (pp. 13-36). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). The evolving self: A psychology for the third millennium. New York: HarperCollins.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, I., Eds. (1988). Optimal experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & LcFcvrc, J. (1989). Optimal experience in work and leisure.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 815-822. Larson, R., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1983). The experience sampling method. In H. T.
Reis (Ed.), Naturalistic approaches to studying social interaction: New directions
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Jossey-Bass.
Snyder, C.R., & Lopez, S. J., Eds. (2002). Handbook of positive psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Trevino, L. K., & Webster, J. (1992). Flow in computer mediated communication. Communication Research, 19, 539-573.
Webster, J., Trevino, L. K., & Ryan, L. (1993). The dimensionality and correlates of flow in human computer interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 9, 411 426.
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Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, I9I-2T5.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social-cognitive theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Csikszentmihya, M. (1990). Flow = The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Deci, E. L., Schwartz, A. J., Sheinman, L., & Ryan, R. M. (1981). An instrument to assess adults' orientations toward control versus autonomy with children: Reflections on intrinsic motivation and perceived competence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 642—650.
Eccles, J., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 109-132.
Elliott, E. S., & Dwek, C. S. (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 5—12.
Medway, F. (1982). The efforts of effort feedback and performance patterns on children's attributions and task persistence. Contemporary Education Psychology, 7, 26-34.
Mueller, C. M., & Dwek, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children's motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 33-52.
Pinder, C. C. (1998). Work motivation in organizational behaviour. Upper Saddle River, Nj: Prentice Hall.
Preece, J., Rogers, Y., & Sharp, H. (2002). Interaction design: Beyond human-computer interaction. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54—56.
Shneiderman, B. (1997). Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction (3rd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92, 548—573.
Wentzell, K. R. (1993). Motivation and achievement in early adolescence: The role of multiple classroom goals. Journal of Early Adolescence, 13, 4—20.
42
Network Gatekeeping
Karine Barzilai-Nahon The Information School University of Washington, USA karineb(3,u.wasliineton.edu
The concept of gatekeeper was coined by the social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1947, 1951). His theory of "channels and gatekeepers" was developed as a means of understanding how to produce widespread social changes in communities. Gatekeeping theories have since been applied in various fields. In disciplines such as communication and journalism, the notions of gatekeeping and gatekeepers are used to understand social systems; in the health sciences, operations research, and technology development, the notions are used to augment service practices (Beckman & Mays, 1985; Motoyer-Duran, 1993; Shoemaker, 1991; Shumsky & Pinker, 2003). While traditional gatekeeping theories were mainly applied in communication (Donohue, Olien, & Tichenor, 1989; Gieber, 1956; Shoemaker, 1991; White, 1950), they mainly referred to gatekeeping as a selection process and offered scholars a framework for analyzing, evaluating, and comprehending how communication or news selection occurred and why some items were selected while others were rejected. More generally, they offered a framework to continue Lewin's research on social change, and examine sources for cultural diversity.
As networks, and more specifically, the Internet, became ubiquitous, however, scholars have increasingly used the term gatekeeper (Birnhack & Elkin-Koren, 2003; Cornfield & Rainie, 2003; Hargittai, 2000) for illustration rather than referencing a specific theoretical framework. Cyberspace has notably changed both the identity and role of gatekeepers as well the gatekeeping process.
Consistent with the initial course of gatekeeping research—as discussed in the communication literature—Barzilai-Nahon (2004) proposed network gatekeeping theory (NGT). Comprising multidisciplinary aspects, including information systems, management, political science, and sociology, NGT offers new definitions of gatekeeping and gatekeepers by
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adapting traditional concepts to a networked society. Based on an exam-ination of power relations on the Internet and a space of information, NGT conceptualizes the distribution of information and processes of information control. It enables one to analyze centralization in networks, which have a decentralized design, and are commonly viewed as egali' tarian spaces. NGT has many ramifications for how we comprehend information dissemination and user behavior on the Internet. NGT comprises five basic concepts:
1) Qate — The entrance to, or the exit from, a network or its sections.
2) gatekeeping — The process of controlling information as it moves through a gate. Activities include selection, addition, withholding, display, channeling, shaping, manipulation, repetition, timing, localization, integration, and disregard and deletion of information.
3) gatekeeping Mechanism- Tool, technology or methodology used to carry out the process of gatekeeping.
4) Network Qatekeeper — An entity (person, organization, or governing body) that has the discretion to exercise gatekeeping through a gatekeeping mechanism in networks and can choose the extent to which to exercise it.
5) (fated — An entity that is subject to a gatekeeping process.
Gatekeepers in networks have three main functions: I) to prevent the entrance of undesired information from the outside; 2) to prevent the exit of undesired information to the outside; and 3) to control informa-tion inside the network. Table 42.1 summarizes the exclusiveness of NGT compared to traditional gatekeeping theories.
Because the traditional concept of gatekeeping was developed mainly as a part of mass communication discourse, the players were conceived as acting in sender-receiver roles. The gatekeeper was conceived as a mass media agent (such as a newspaper, television, or radio station) playing the role of the sender, with the gated, (such as a newspaper reader, television viewer, or radio listener) playing the role of the receiver. The gatekeeper was responsible for editing, producing, and distributing information to be received by the gated.
Table 42.1   Traditional gatekeeping vs. network gatekeeping,
	Traditional Gatekeeping	Network Gatekeeping Theory (NGT)
Gatekeeping process	Mainly a selection process	Information control that includes activities such as selection, addition, withholding, display, channeling, shaping, manipulation, repetition, timing, localization, integration, disregard, and deletion
Focus on gatekeepers	The individual gatekeeper	Focus on two dimensions: authority and functional. Different levels in each dimension (e.g., governments, regulators, search providers, network service providers, organizations, individuals)
Focus on gatekeeping mechanism	Editorial mechanisms	Nine categories are part of gatekeeping mechanisms (e.g., censorship, channeling, infrastructure mechanisms), and one meta-category, the regulation mechanism
Relationship	Relations of sender-receiver	Frequent exchange interaction between gated and gatekeeper
Information	Notion of source-destination	No necessary association between source-destination and gatekeeper-gated
	Only gatekeepers produce and create information freely	The gated also create and produce information
Alternatives	No alternatives to gatekeeping	Possible circumvention of gatekeepers and gatekeeping mechanisms
Power	Gatekeeper has power, the gated has none	The bargaining power of the gated is on the rise. On the other hand, gatekeepers have more mechanisms to control information
Number of gatekeepers	One to a few	A few to many
Types of gatekeepers	One to a few	A few to many
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In the context of networks, however, the notion of separate sender' receiver is no longer valid. During any network interaction, the roles of sender and receiver are repeatedly exchanged, with the gatekeeper and the gated playing both roles.
Consistent with the notion of sender-receiver, traditional literature treats information that passes from sender to receiver as having a source' tO'destination direction. The source is presumed to be the originator of the information (the gatekeeper) and the information (the gated) is pre-sumed to be the destination. However, in the context of networks, infor' mation can also be produced by the gated, and the gated can serve as a source; likewise, the gatekeeper can also serve as a destination point. Furthermore, according to the traditional literature, only gatekeepers create and produce information; the gated audience is not considered capable of producing and creating information freely. The gated only rarely receive the right to create information, in most cases under the control and authorization of the gatekeeper. For example, a newspaper reader asked to react to an article may do so only by means of a column reserved for reader responses, and one of the editors must approve it for publication. NGT argues that in networks, the relationship between gatekeepers and gated is more complex.
It is likely that the gatekeepers create and produce greater volumes of information than the gated because of their vast resources. Nevertheless, the gated can create and produce information indepeii' dently as well, without having to pass through a content gatekeeper. But when the gated create information independently, its significance is rather low because of the limited exposure it receives compared to information disseminated by the gatekeepers that control most of the audience's attention. The existence of alternative public platforms to gatekeepers is significant in itself because it contributes to a more plu' ralized cyberspace. Another way of analyzing gated power in networks is by focusing on the production of information rather than on the creation of information. The gated can produce information in networks that was created by gatekeepers, an ability that enhances the power of the gated.
A major deterministic claim put forth by the traditional concept of gate' keeping is that the gated's ability to circumvent the gatekeeping process is minimal. The only alternative is to circumvent a specific gatekeeper by
moving to another within the same community, which may well be sub' ject to the same biases and procedures. For example, a reader can switch from one newspaper to another, but the process of gatekeeping through the editorial process continues. NGT shows that in networks the gated can circumvent gatekeeping. For example, through publishing an independent Web site, the gated can respond to events that she cannot respond to through traditional channels of the media and without the intervention of gatekeeping. However, circumvention is not always possible even in networks since often gatekeepers use more than one mechanism, depending on context, which makes the circumvention more difficult.
In traditional literature, relationships between gatekeepers and their audience are mainly uni-directional. This strengthens the gatekeepers' power and their control over their audience. Because of the presumed sender-receiver roles of gatekeeper (sender) and the gated (receiver), the gated are not perceived as possessing any significant power. In a networked environment the situation is significantly more complicated. The gated may have alternatives and the power to create and produce information. Their bargaining position and power are enhanced relative to traditional roles. Consequently, gatekeepers must avoid conditions that encourage the gated to overcome gates that have been posted in networks. On the other hand, gatekeepers have more mechanisms of information control, which they can exercise over the gated (see Figure 42.1).
Traditional gatekeeping researchers usually use ethnographic case study methodologies. In analyzing gatekeeping in a networked context, this might not be sufficient. Barzilai-Nahon (2004) suggests a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology, using a content analysis of the information combined with quantitative methods, to analyze models as part of the general NGT. NGT allows one to understand information control and to predict patterns of user behavior in the networked environment. For example, it was found that senior members of virtual communities are less likely to post messages that harm the community compared to new members (Barzilai-Nahon, 2004).
In summary, the Internet poses new paradigmatic challenges. On the one hand, it is a more open space than other offline means of communication and allows more diversity in the behavioral modes of users. On the other hand, information control is frequent, and consequently, scholars
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GKMs
GKMs
P = Poster (gatekeeper or gated or user) one who posts new information to a network
P1 = Items of information that attempt to enter a network
P2 = Items of information that attempt to enter a network and were discarded following a gatekeeping process
P3 = Items of information that enter a network by circumventing the gatekeeping mechanism
P1 ' = Items of information that attempt to enter a network and have passed gatekeeping process
R = Retriever (gated or user) one who retrieves new information from a network
R1 = Items of information that attempt to exit a network
R2 = Items of information that attempt to exit a network and were prevented from doing so by 2 gatekeeping process
R3 = Items of information that exit a network by circumventing the gatekeeping mechanism
R1 ' = Items of information that exit a network and have passed a gatekeeping process
GKMs - Gatekeeping Mechanism (can be more than one) G = Gated
Figure 42.1   Illustrative model of network gatekeeping,
and practitioners should be aware of the importance of analyzing cyber-space through the lens of gatekeeping. NGT enables one to conceptualize and analyze information flow over the Internet, both technically and socially. NGT emphasizes power relationships among relevant actors through information flow, and identifies potential bottlenecks and obstacles. Finally, analyzing the phenomenon of information flow through NGT also helps practitioners and scholars evaluate aspects of virtual communities' cultures through an awareness of the forces that control and provide information to members of online communities.
Cornfield, M., & Ramie, L. (2003). Untuned keyboards: Online campaigners, citizens and portals in the 2002 elections. Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, Pew Internet & American Life Project. www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/85/ report_display.asp
Donohue, G. A., Olien, C. N., & Tichenor, P. J. (1989). Structure and constraints on community newspaper gatekeepers. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 807—812.
Gieber, W. (1956). Across the desk: A study of 16 telegraph editors. Journalism Quarterly, 33, 423^132.
Hargittai, E. (2000). Standing before the portals: Non-profit websites in an age of commercial gatekeepers. The Journal of Policy, Regulation and Strategy for Telecommunications Information and Media, 2, 537—544.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics II: Channels of group life; social planning and action research. Human Relations, 1, 143—153.
Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers. NY: Harper & Row.
Motoyer-Duran, C. (1993). Information gatekeepers. In M. Williams (Ed.), Annual review of information science and technology, 28 (pp. Ill—150). Medford, NJ: Learned Information Inc.
Shoemaker, P. (1991). gatekeeping. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Shumsky, R., & Pinker, E. (2003). Gatekeepers and referrals in services. Management Science, 49, 839-856.
White, D. M. (1950). The "gate keeper": A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27, 383—390.
Barzilai-Nahon, K. (2004). Qateheepers and gatekeeping mechanisms in networks. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Beckman, L., & Mays, V. (1985). Education community gatekeepers about alcohol
abuse in women: Changing attitudes, knowledge and referral practices. Journal of
Drug Education, 15(4), 289-309. Birnhack, M., & Elkin-Koren, N. (2003). The invisible handshake: The reemergence of
the State in the digital environment. Virginia Journal of Law and Technology,
8(2). Retrieved May 20, 2004, from www.vjolt.net/
The PAIN Hypothesis 271
46
The PAIN Hypothesis
Harry Bruce The Information School University of Washington, USA harryb@u. washington.edu
The PAIN hypothesis explicates, in five propositions, the concept of personal anticipated information need. The attributes of this concept are derived from elaborations of the concepts information need and anticipated information need (in particular, Taylor's four levels of infor-mation need, Belkin's ASK hypothesis, Dcrvin's Sense-Making theory, Kuhlthau's uncertainty principle, and Erdelcz's information encountering). PAIN is introduced as the motivation and underpinning framework for information behavior that relates to personal information management, specifically, to the thoughts and actions of building and maintaining a personal information collection (PIC behaviors). The PAIN hypothesis articulates the foundation for selected behaviors, associated with personal information management. Each proposition is introduced as a framework for further study and for elaboration, empirical validation, or correction by researchers who focus on the behavior of personal information management.
A personal information collection is defined as the space that individuals turn to first when they need information to do a task or pursue an interest. The term personal information collection refers broadly to a personal organization of and perspective on information. It includes content in various forms (documents, Web pages, mail, notes, calendars, address books, etc.), structures for representing and organizing this information (folder hierarchies, piles, lists, etc.), and pointers to information (people, links, favorites, etc.). It is an idiosyncratic and dynamic ( personal construct that individuals take with them into, and out of, the various information events that frame their daily working and personal lives. This construct is an artifact of three processes: I) selecting, 2) keeping, and 3) maintaining information sources and channels that the individual has located, been given, or encountered.
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Each process of personal information collection (selecting, keeping, and maintaining) is underpinned by an individual's anticipation of a future use for information sources or channels. This construct is called personal anticipated information need (PAIN). The basic assumption of personal information collection and the PAIN hypothesis is that individuals are capable of assessing (with varying degrees of accuracy and endurance) the relevance and application of information sources and channels to predicted or potential needs or tasks. PAIN is explicated by the following five propositions.
1) Personal anticipated information need is triggered by information events. When an individual locates, encounters, or is given an information source or channel, a number of information use and evaluation behaviors occur. The information source or channel is evaluated against the individual's motives for seeking information (information need). These evaluations may result in immediate information use. But, contact with an information source or channel (intentional or incidental) may also lead to evaluations that acknowledge the usefulness of the information but delay information use to another point in time—an anticipated moment of information use, hypothesized by the individual. Attributes of the information source or channel are used by the individual to make these assessments in relation to his or her sense of task, work-based or recreational information needs. The information source or channel is an amalgam of stimuli that evoke this assessment of PAIN within the information event.
2) Individuals have differential sensitivity and reactions to personal anticipated information need. An individual's sensitivity and reactions to PAIN are affected by variables associated with the time and space of each information event. Reactions to an information source or channel are based upon the individual's ability to make sense of the information source or channel—to apply it effectively to an information need; to use it to make a decision, to do a task, or to address an interest; to understand its future value; and to organize it for later access and use. The abilities of an individual to react to PAIN and his or her repertoire of reactions to the stimuli of the information source or channel will differ. The processes of building and managing a personal information collection depend on an individual's ability to make sense of an information source or channel and then to predict its function in his or her life in relation to future tasks or
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information needs. This requires acceptance of the information (a form of assessment and evaluation) and an understanding of the implications of delayed access to, and perhaps processing of, the information.
3) Personal anticipated information need predicts, but does not guarantee, future information use. PAIN assigns value to an information source or channel at a particular point in space and time. This value may change as the individual moves forward with his or her life. Anticipated applications, tasks, decisions or interest levels may not eventuate. An anticipated need simply may not occur. In other words, individuals make mistakes when they anticipate their future needs for information, and changing situations may affect an individual's abilities to make accurate and enduring PAIN assessments. When an individual creates a personal information collection, he or she is attempting to select and keep (or at least to insure the availability of) useful information (a hit) and to ignore useless information (a correct rejection). PAIN is not free of error, however. People sometimes keep information that turns out to be useless (a false positive); and they sometimes take no steps to keep information that turns out to be useful (a miss).
4) Personal anticipated information need informs the investments and valuations that underpin the processes of personal information collect tion. The selecting, keeping, and maintaining processes of personal information collection require an investment of cognitive effort and time. The extent of these investments by an individual will depend on his or her perception of the relationship between anticipated information need and the information found or encountered. The goal of the personal information collection is to maximize the potential benefit of selecting and keeping an information source or channel while at the same time minimizing the cognitive effort and time that this requires. When an individual chooses to include an information source or channel in the personal information collection, this means that he or she has accepted the relative value of the investment of time and cognitive effort required to achieve the benefit of having the information source or channel readily accessible. In cases where the PAIN is well defined, the individual may need to invest very little cognitive effort and time to translate the selected information source or channel into representations that position it in the personal information collection. In cases where the PAIN is less well
defined, selecting and keeping processes require an increased investment of cognitive effort and time.
5) Sensitivity to personal anticipated information need is critical information literacy. The challenge of finding and using information in our working and everyday lives has drawn increasing attention to the set of skills and literacies that individuals need for leading efficient and satisfying lives in an information age. Individuals must be effective users of information. They must also be skillful builders and managers of their personal information collection where they collect, organize, and store the information that they need to refer to on a regular basis. The personal information collection should be cultivated and well-managed, but many are overloaded and disorganized. They are often a source of frustration, anxiety, stress, and embarrassment. The processes that construct the personal information collection rely fundamentally upon the individual's sensitivity to his or her information needs and anticipated information needs. The key to an effective personal information collection, therefore, rests with the accuracy and endurance of an individual's PAIN. Enhancing our sensitivity and appropriate responses to PAIN is, therefore, a key literacy.
In sum, personal information management includes a set of behavior that attempts to bring order—the processes of selecting, keeping, and maintaining the information sources and channels that comprise the personal information collection. These processes are underpinned and informed by each individual's ability to understand the information he or she needs for immediate and deferred purposes, work-based or recreational PAIN. The qualities of the personal information collection will firstly depend upon how well each individual understands his or her PAIN and secondly on how effectively he or she translates this understanding into the processes of selecting, keeping, and maintaining the information sources and channels that comprise the personal information collection.
Belkin, N. J., Oddy, R. N., & Brooks, H. M. (1982). ASK for information retrieval: Part I. Background and theory. Journal of Documentation, 38(2), 61—71.
Dervin, B. (1992). From the mind's eye of the 'user': The Sense-Making qualitative-quantitative methodology. In: Glazier, J. D., & Powell, R. R. (Eds.), Qualitative research in information management (pp. 61—84). Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
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Erdelez, S. (1999). Information encountering: It's more than just bumping into information. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, 25(3), 25-29.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (1993). A principle of uncertainty for information seeking. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 339-355.
Taylor, R. S. (1968). Question-negotiation and information seeking in libraries. College and Research Libraries, 29, 178-194.
47
Perspectives on the Tasks in which Information Behaviors
Are Embedded
Barbara M. Wildemuth and Antbony Hugbes School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA wildem@ils.unc.edu and ahughes@unc.edu
People undertake an almost infinite variety of information behaviors. In almost all cases, these information behaviors are undertaken within the context of some other purpose, goal, or activity. In other words, the person's information behaviors are situated within the context of some larger task or set of tasks. For example, the students involved in Kuhlthau's (1991) seminal study engaged in information seeking while completing a school assignment to write a research paper, and the municipal administrators studied by Bystrom (2002) engaged in a variety of information behaviors while responding to new matters registered with the city government. Though the same term—tasks—is used in the literature, the tasks in which information behaviors are embedded shotdd be distinguished from the specific search goals undertaken or the search tasks assigned to study participants. Of primary concern here are the tasks that form the context for information behaviors. These tasks have direct as well as indirect interactions with people's information-seeking activities and are a primary but under-studied phenomenon. Several theories that do address such tasks are briefly reviewed here.
Allen (1996, 1997) proposed a person-in-situation approach to our understanding of information needs. As he noted, "information needs happen to individuals who are embedded in a range of social (situations" (Allen, 1996, p. 88). Allen considered four sources of influence on an individual's information needs (and, thus, on an individual's information-seeking behavior). The four sources of influence include individual influences (i.e., knowledge structures and perceptions), situational/social influences on
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Radical Change 299
SI
Radical Change
Eliza T. Dresang School of Information Studies Florida State University, USA edresang@mailer.fsu.edu
The theory of radical change, developed in the last decade of the 20th century by Eliza T. Dresang, is based on the premise that many aspects of information behavior and the design of information resources in the digital age can be explained by what Dresang identifies as digital age principles: interactivity, connectivity, and access. The striking changes in information behavior (including approach to learning) and informal tion design in the 21st century can often be explained or understood only when taking into consideration these principles that dominate and are facilitated by a microchip-saturated society:
• Interactivity refers to dynamic, user-initiated, nonlinear, nonsequential, complex information behavior, and representation.
• Connectivity refers to the sense of community or construction of social worlds that emerge from changing perspectives and expanded associations.
• Access refers to the breaking of long-standing information barriers, bringing entrée to a wide diversity of opinion and opportunity.
These same principles explicate facets of information behavior as well as the presentation of information in both handheld and electronic or Web-based resources.
The roots of this theory go back to Dresang's dissertation research (1981), which gave students varying levels of involvement in choice of topics and resources in a specific learning situation. In addition to a quasi-experiment pretest-posttest design, Dresang employed Dervin's micro-moment interviewing technique to extract meanings from the students'
298
information behavior. The results from both quantitative and qualitative analyses demonstrated the powerful effect of what have evolved into and been identified as the radical change digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access.
The theory was originally developed by Dresang to explain observed changes in information behavior and information resources, particularly for youth in the digital age (Dresang, 2003, 1999a, 1999b, 1997; Dresang & McClelland, 1999). The radical change theory has been used to identify three ways in which the information behavior of youth has changed in the digital age:
1) How they think, learn, give, receive and create information
2) How they perceive themselves and others
3) How they access information and seek community
The theory has identified three concomitant changes in contemporary handheld books:
1) Changing forms and formats
2) Changing perspectives
3) Changing boundaries
This interaction of digital age information seekers with digitally designed resources that bridge the print/digital divide has been described as "rhizomorphic reading" (Burnett & Dresang, 1999).
Working with Melissa Gross and Leslie Holt, Dresang has also applied radical change to a three-year Institute of Museum and Library Services—funded research project studying information behavior of youth in the use of computers in a public library setting. The counterintuitive, to some, social nature of children's computer use, on- and offline, is one of a number of aspects of their information behavior explained by the radical change theory. A series of articles, one of which will focus on an examination of the findings through the "lens" of radical change, was initiated in 2004 (Gross, Dresang, & Holt, in press). A paradigm change proposed by Dresang for the study of information seeking of youth on the Internet, one that is less adult-proscribed and grows more out of the affinity youth have for computers, can also be analyzed from the perspective of radical
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change (1999b). This perspective is noted in Agosto's model for young people's decision making in using the Web (2002).
The theory of radical change has been applied in the disciplines of Information Studies/Science, Education, English, and in studies of human computer interaction. Researchers who have used radical change to explain information behavior include Dawlene Hammerberg (2001), University of Wisconsin—Madison, who used radical change in her study of young children's "hypertextual" writing behavior. Sylvia Pantaleo (2002), University of Alberta, applied radical change in research studies to understand first-grade children's information behavior when confronted with non-linear texts. Another application of this theory occurs in a dissertation submitted by Marta J. Abele (2003), Capella University. She used radical change to elucidate preservice teachers' changes in information behavior when exposed to non-traditional books. Perry Nodelman, Professor of English, University of Winnipeg, described Dresang as one of "two significant theorists" who have developed explanatory frameworks for changes in contemporary literature for youth (Nodelman & Reimer, 2003, p. 212). John Zbikowski, University of Wisconsin—Waterwater, used radical change to explicate "the relationship between information and communication technologies and literacy development in and out of schools" (personal communication, March 2, 2004), and Judith Ridge, University of Sydney, found it useful in exploring creative writing (personal communication, February 18, 2004).
Radical change has connections with several other information behavior theories or models. For example, aspects of radical change relate to social constructionism; reader response theory; information literacy; Dervin's Sense-Making; Vygotsky's zone of proximal development; and the hybrid information-seeking Web model. The similarities to these theories and models include environmental influence on information behavior, situational sense making, interpretation of information based on perspective, role of adults in youth information seeking, new illiteracies, and interaction of information behavior and resource design.
No specific research design or data collection or analysis methodology accompanies application of the radical change theory. The appropriate design and analysis depends on the context of the investigation. Research designs employing participant observation and case-study methodologies
have been used on several occasions in connection with radical change. One frequently used tool is content analysis, applied to resource narratives and visuals and to text collected from open-ended interview questions and from recordings of focus groups.
The potential applications of the radical change theory have not yet been fully explored. The theory is young, but promises to be useful in many circumstances. Shortly before her death, Elfreda Chatman suggested that the theory of radical change had far greater explicative power than had been tapped and that researchers should and would move beyond its current applications to various other aspects of information behavior. One of the strengths of the theory lies in its versatility. Since its applications to date explain information behavior of young children, adolescents, and adults, it appears pertinent to virtually any information seekers in a wide range of information environments.
Another strength is its applicability to contemporary information behavior. Radical change fills a gap in explaining phenomena that have become prevalent in the digital age in a way that no other theory does. The major weakness related to radical change is that it is not yet well known in arenas where it would be useful. Researchers struggle to explain the very information behavior that radical change explicates without awareness that this appropriate theoretical framework exists. Time and further applications will remedy this.
Radical change does what a theory purports to do; it makes sense of what otherwise does not seem easily explicable. It applies the digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access to explain many different aspects of contemporary information behavior and resources. Perhaps its digital age principles make it seem more logically applied to the online environment, but it is equally useful on and offline. The theory started with looking at system design in the technology of the book and has moved on to explaining systems of information behavior.
Abele, M. (2003). Responses to Radical Change children's books by preservice teachers (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, 2003). Dissertation Abstracts International, 64, 2025.
Agosto, D. (2002). A model of young people's decision-making in using the Web. Library & Information Science Research, 24(4), 311—341.
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Bumett, K., & Dresang, E. (1999). Rhizomorphic reading: The emergence of a new aesthetic in literature for youth. The Library Quarterly 69(4), 421-25.
Dresang, E. (1981). Communication conditions and media influence on attitudes and information uses (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1981). Dissertation Abstracts International, 43, 294.
Dresang, E. (1997). Influence of the digital environment on literature for youth: Radical Change in the handheld book. Library Trends, 45(4), 639—663.
Dresang, E. (1999a). Informal information seeking behavior of youth on the Internet. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50, 1123—1124.
Dresang, E. (1999b). Radical Change: Books for youth in a digital age. New York: H. W. Wilson.
Dresang, E. (2003). Controversial books and contemporary children. The Journal of Children's Literature, 29(1), I-T3.
Dresang, E., & McClelland, K. (1999). Radical change: Digital age literature and learning. Theory into Practice 38(3), 160-168
Gross, M, Dresang, E., & Holt, L. (in press). Children's in-library use of computers in an urban public library. Library & Information Science Research, 25.
Hammerberg, D. (2001). Reading and writing 'hypertextually': Children's literature, technology, and early writing Instruction. Language Arts, 78(5), 207—217.
Nodelman, P., & Reimer, M. (2003). The pleasures of children's literature (3zi ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Pantaleo, S. (2002). Grade I students meet David Wiesner's three pigs. Journal of Children's Literature, 28(2), 72—84.
53
Reader Response Theory
Catherine Sheldrick Ross Faculty of Information and Media Studies The University of Western Ontario, Canada ross@uwo.ca
M. H. Abrams once argued in The Mirror and the Lamp (1953) that the "situation" of the literary text could be understood in terms of four basic coordinates or relations: the expressive, which is the relation of the text to its author; the pragmatic, which is the relation of text to audience; the mimetic, which is the relation of text to the world; and the objective, which is the relation of the text to itself as a self-contained autonomous object. The attention given to these various relations has fluctuated as new models and paradigms of reading and criticism dis-what went before. Reader-response criticism emphasizes the pragmatic relation of text to audience and came into prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a rejection of the new criticism, a theory of reading that had previously dominated literature teaching in the English Departments of North American universities. This reader-oriented approach has been given emphasis in a number of studies written within the library and information science (LIS) field (Pawley 2002; Ross 1999; Vandergrift 1986; Wiegand 1998). It has also been used as the theoretical framework for studies such as Janice Radway's Reading the Romance (1984) or Elizabeth Long's Book Clubs (2003), which have been adopted within LIS as key texts in the ethnography of reading..
For LIS researchers interested in the relation between readers and texts, reader-response criticism is valuable because it foregrounds the activity of the reader who constructs meaning from black marks on the page. Research performed within the framework of reader-response theory asks questions about the agency of the reader: What is the reader doing when she reads? What is the relation between the reader and the text? What happens in the process of the reader's making sense of texts? This emphasis on the active reader distinguishes reader-response theory from the theoretical framework used in earlier reading studies conducted
303
place
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Hara, N., & Solomon, P. (2004). Collaboration in a multi'institutional scientific
research center: Understanding sense making during the formative period of an
organization. Manuscript submitted for publication. Solomon, P. (1997). Discovering information behavior in sense making. II. The social.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48, 1109—1126. Solomon, P. (1999). Information mosaics: Patterns of action that structure. In T. D.
Wilson, & D. K. Allen (Eds.), Exploring the contexts of information behaviour (pp.
150—175). London: Taylor Graham. Solomon, P. (2000). Exploring structuration in knowledge organization: Implications
for managing the tension between stability and dynamism. Advances in Knowledge
Organization, 7, 254—260. Solomon, P. (2002). Discovering information in context. Annual Review of Information
Science and Technology, 36, 229—264.
»eriouj
iure
Jcnna Härtel Department of Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles, USA jhartel@ucla.edu
Serious leisure is a constellation of insights about the activities that happen within leisure time. It is useful for studying information behav-ior in the leisure parts of everyday life, where few research precedents exist, notwithstanding such notable exceptions as Hektor (2001), Julien & Michels (2004), Kari (2001), Pettigrew (2000), Pettigrew, Durrance, & Unruh (2002), Ross (1999), and Savolainen (1995).
Though leisure is personally cherished and socially important, it may also seem nebulous, unstructured, and marginal to information behavior investigators, who have traditionally focused on academic or professional settings. A key insight of serious leisure is that leisure is not homogenous in character but takes two forms: serious and casual. The serious kind of leisure is highly informational and involves knowledge acquisition. Hence the most important feature of serious leisure is that it establishes a mandate for the library and information studies field to explore certain leisure realms. Further, serious leisure supplies definitions, descriptions, and classes that make leisure a more approachable research topic.
Serious leisure was coined in 1982 by Robert Stebbins and is based upon wide-ranging ethnographic research. Though a sociologist, Stebbins considers serious leisure to be interdisciplinary, for it draws from nearly every social science. Conveniently, Stebbins recently summarized the literature on serious leisure in the landmark, New directions in the theory and research of serious leisure (Stebbins, 2001). Serious leisure was introduced into library and information studies in 2004 by Hartel who sees it as a call to action and cornerstone for a research program on the informational dimensions of leisure (Hartel, 2004),
A starting point for this concept is to view the day as comprised of four types of activity: paid work, unpaid work, self-care, and free time (Robinson & Godbey, 1997). Leisure happens in this last segment, and is
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Serious Leisure 315
the "uncoerced activity undertaken in free time" (Stebbins, 2002, p. 15). Next, leisure is divided into two forms: serious and casual, which differ markedly. Serious leisure is "the systematic pursuit of an [activity] participants find so substantial and interesting that in the typical case they launch themselves on a career centered on acquiring and expressing its special skills, knowledge, and experience" (Stebbins, 2001, p. 3). The word "serious" in this usage implies concentration and dedication, not gravity, for serious leisure is largely fun. Serious leisure has three vari-eties: amateurism, volunteering, and hobbies.
The counterpart to serious leisure is casual leisure, "the immediately and intrinsically rewarding, relatively short-lived, pleasurable activity requiring little or no special training to enjoy it" (Stebbins, 2001, p. 58). Put another way, casual leisure is, "doing what comes naturally" and it is one of life's simple joys. Napping, watching television, or kissing a sweet-heart are prime examples. There are six types of casual leisure: play, relaxation, passive entertainment, active entertainment, sociable con-versation, and sensory stimulation. Because casual leisure does not require knowledge acquisition (one needn't learn how to nap!) it may be a less-compelling subject for information behavior research, but is mentioned to bring the distinct qualities of serious leisure into relief.
Stebbins has identified six essential qualities to all serious leisure pursuits. These qualities supply background insights while also suggesting good information-related research questions. To start, serious leisure involves proactive acquisition of knowledge and skill. It is likely this process of knowledge acquisition and its resources that information behavior scholars will seek to explicate. Second, serious leisure includes an occasional need to persevere, as when a cook searches doggedly for the ideal recipe. Third, there is a leisure version of a career that proceeds in stages: beginning, development, establishment, maintenance, and decline. The evolution of information phenomena over the arc of the career is an important and unexplored issue. Fourth, serious leisure has 10 durable benefits, which are personal and social rewards (see Stebbins, 2001, pp. 13—15). Next, participants in serious leisure have a strong identification with their community, which may manifest in displays of affiliation such as a style of dress. Finally, there is a unique ethos or culture to serious leisure realms.
Serious leisure also has a relative intensity scale. Here, imagine the nonchalant and occasional sailor, versus one who is "gung-ho." Those with low levels of involvement arc participants, while the ultra-passionate are devotees. Doing serious leisure sporadically (outside of the career stages) is dabbling and is performed by dabblers.
Research on serious leisure can occur at five possible levels of analysis: the personal, interactional, mesostructural, structural, and sociocultural (see Stebbins, 2001, pp. 21-25). Generally speaking, this echoes the "micro" to "macro" poles common to research in the social sciences. Along this axis, the disciplinary emphasis shifts, as would the theoretical approach to information behavior research. The personal level is the province of psychology, and in information behavior may involve a cognitive orientation, such as that of Kuhlthau (1993). The mesostructural level looks at the dynamics of groups and orients sociologically, akin to Chatman's work on prisoners (1999) and the elderly (1996). The most abstract stratum, the sociocultural, engages sociology and anthropology; it is manifest in bibliometrics or domain analysis (Hjorland & Albrechtsen, 1995).
The set of analytical devices just reviewed applies to any of the three forms of serious leisure: amateurism, volunteering, and hobbies. Hartel (2004) argues that hobbies are the plum starting point for information behavior research because of their prevalence. Here, amateurism and volunteering will be tabled so that hobbies can be reviewed in detail.
By definition, a hobby is "the systematic and enduring pursuit of a reasonably evolved and specialized free-time activity" (Stebbins, 2003). Stebbins' research into hobbies has identified five general classes: collectors, makers and tinkerers, activity participants, players of sports and games, and liberal arts enthusiasts (Stebbins, 2001, p. 5). Stamp collecting, knitting, ballroom dancing, playing checkers, and following politics, respectively, are popular examples of individual types of hobbies within the broad classes.
The classes are self-explanatory, except for the liberal arts enthusiasts, who become fascinated with a subject and learn about it incessantly. These hobbyists may amass impressive collections of books and gain reputations as lay experts (see Stebbins, 2001, pp. 27—40). Members of this hobby class should be of particular interest to the information behavior community because of their fervor for information.
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Scholarship under the umbrella of serious leisure is sometimes enhanced with the theory of social worlds (Unruh, 1980). Social worlds are communities held together by a shared interest. According to Stebbins, the social unit that forms amidst serious leisure is a social world. Additional insights and instruments can be brought to bear on a research project by applying social worlds theory (see Unruh, 1980).
It is important to note that serious leisure and social worlds are not metatheories or theories of information; nor do they determine research design or methods for information behavior projects. Rather, they are interdisciplinary constructs that illuminate features of everyday life and leisure. Per sociologists Wagner & Berger (1985, p. 703) they are "unit theories," a set of concepts specified into a concrete setting (i.e., leisure). Information behavior researchers must adopt theories that matches their research questions. Härtel (2004), for example, paired serious leisure with domain analysis (Hjorland & Albrechtsen, 1995) to study the information forms of hobby cooking.
In some forms of leisure, serious leisure beckons the information behavior community to take leisure seriously. Its descriptive and classifi-catory elements illuminate, isolate, and stabilize serious leisure subjects so that information behavior research can occur rigorously and systematically. This opens up an exciting and virtually unexplored frontier for the library and information studies field.
Chatman, E. A. (1996). The impoverished life-world of outsiders. Journal of the
American Society of Information Science, 47, 193—206. Chatman, E. A. (1999). A theory of life in the round. Journal of the American Society
for Information Science, 50, 207—217.
Härtel, J. (in press). The serious leisure frontier in library and information studies: Hobby domains. Knowledge Organization.
Hektor, A. (2001). What's the use? Internet and information behavior in everyday life. Linkoping, Sweden: Linkoping University, Tema.
Hjorland, B., & Albrechtsen, H. (1995). Toward a new horizon in information science: Domain analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46, 400^25.
Julien, H., & Michels, D. (2004). Intra-individual information behavior. Information Processing and Management, 40, 547—562.
Kari, J. (2001). Information seeking and interest in the paranormal: Towards a process model of information action. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Tampere, Finland.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (1993). A principle of uncertainty for Information seeking. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 339-355.
Pettigrew, K. E. (2000). Lay information provision in community settings: How community health nurses disseminate human services information to the elderly. The Library Quarterly, 70, 47—85.
Pettigrew, K. E., Durrance, J. C, &Unruh, K.T. (2002). Facilitating community information-seeking using the Internet: Findings from three public library-community network systems. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 53, 894-903.
Robinson, J. P., & Godbey, G. (1997). Time for life: The surprising way s Americans use their time. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
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Savolainen, R. (1995). Everyday life information seeking: Approaching information seeking in the context of way of life. Library & Information Science Research, 17(3), 259-294.
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Stebbins, R. A. (2001). New directions in the theory and research of serious leisure: Mellen Studies in Sociology, vol. 28. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Stebbins, R. A. (2003). Hobbies. In Encyclopedia of leisure and outdoor recreation. London: Routledge.
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56
Small--World Network Exploration
Lennart Bjb'rneborn Department of Information Studies Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark lb@db.dk
On the Web, so-called small-world network properties are concerned with short distances along link paths through intermediate Web pages and Web sites. Small-world link structures deal with core library and information science issues such as navigability and accessibility of information across vast document networks on the Web. For instance, short connectivity distances along link paths on the Web affect the speed and exhaustivity with which Web crawlers can reach and retrieve Web pages when following links from Web page to Web page. Further, small-world link topologies of the Web may have implications for the way users surf the Web and the ease with which they gather information (Adamic, 1999).
Small-world theory stems from research in social network analysis on short distances between two arbitrary persons through intermediate chains of acquaintances (Milgram, 1967; Pool & Kochen, 1978/1979; Kochen, 1989), popularized by the notion of "six degrees of separation" (Guare, 1990).
Watts & Strogatz (1998) revived small-world theory by introducing a small-world network model characterized by a combination of highly clustered network nodes and short average path lengths between pairs of nodes. Watts and Strogatz showed that in a small-world network it is sufficient to have a small percentage of "long-range" connections functioning as shortcuts connecting "distant" nodes of the network. Subsequent research has revealed small-world network properties in a wide variety of networks, including biochemical, neural, ecological, physical, technical, social, economical, and informational networks (e.g., Albert & Barabasi, 2002). For instance, scientific collaboration networks and semantic networks may show small-world features. The coincidence of high local clustering and short global separation (Watts, 1999) means
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that small-world networks simultaneously consist of small local and global distances, enabling high efficiency in propagating information, ideas, contacts, signals, energy, viruses, etc., both on a local and global scale in different networks.
Small-world link topologies have been identified in large areas of the hypertextual document networks of the Web (e.g., Adamic, 1999; Albert, J eong, & Barabasi, 1999; Broder et al., 2000). The Web is constructed through collaborative weaving by millions of local link creators (Bjornebom, 2004). From their micro-level positions, the link creators cannot see how their links fit into the self-organizing macro-level aggregations of link clusters as there exists no global registry and mapping of the Web.
Logically, the distributed knowledge organization of the Web affects options for users' information behavior. In other words, the ways information resources are organized and interconnected on the Web influence the ways in which the Web may be navigated and exploited by users who access information by searching, browsing, serendipitous encountering, or combinations of these different information behaviors (e.g., Catledge &Pitkow, 1995; Erdelez, 2000).
Convergent goal-directed search behavior may identify central points of information that subsequently may function as points of departure for more divergent behavior including browsing and serendipity (Bjorneborn, 2004). Correspondingly, information that is serendipi-tously encountered may lead to a need for more focused search strategies. Users moving through an information space may thus change direction and behavior several times as their information needs and interests may develop or get triggered, depending on options and opportunities encountered on their wav.
Serendipity—the attentive ability to find unexpected but useful information—typically occurs when users engage in exploratory, browsing information behavior (e.g., Bates, 1986; Cove & Walsh, 1988; Chang & Rice, 1993; Erdelez, 2000; Toms, 2000). Such behavior may help researchers and others to discover information that they did not know they needed, or that they did not know existed. In other words, serendipity may occur when the interest space of a user—i.e., the multitude of tasks, problems, and interests, which are more or less urgent or latent in the user's life and related to work, leisure, etc.—is triggered
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when the user traverses an information space (e.g., a city, a library, the Web) and encounters contents, options, and pointers offered by this information space (Bjorneborn, 2004).
The Web was developed as a tool to facilitate easy access to networked information sharing and browsing. Web links may function as subject access points and guiding tools that may help users to discover optional and alternative directions and "loopholes" to encounter information. Traversal options and access points to information on the Web depend on where and where to millions of Web constructors have placed and targeted links. A human Web surfer or digital Web crawler exploring the Web by following links from Web page to Web page has the possibility to move from one topic cluster to another topically distant cluster by following a single cross-topic link on, for example, a persona! link list, as a small-world shortcut.
The shorter the link distances are between Web pages and Web sites belonging to different topical domains, the larger the probability of encountering unexpected information while traversing these link structures. However, there are no straightforward causal relations between small-world knowledge organization and serendipitous possibilities. As stated by several researchers, (e.g., Kleinberg, 2000; Adamic et al., 2001; Menczer, 2002) it is difficult to identify shortest link paths across a Web space if only information about local link topologies is available, as is the case for human Web surfers or digital Web crawlers following links.
Special decentralized algorithms have been developed that utilize local connectivity information for identifying short paths through a network if no global link data arc vacant. In particular, well-connected hublike nodes may be exploited in such decentralized algorithms. Findings by Bjorneborn (2004) on what types of links, Web pages, and sites function as cross-topic connectors in a small-world academic Web space suggest that, for instance, the rich diversity of inlinks and outlinks to and from computer-science Web sites and link lists on personal Web pages could be utilized for such computer-aided navigation along small-world shortcuts.
As academic Web spaces increasingly include self-presentations and link creations by scholars, the sociology of science may employ small-world approaches including the concepts of weak ties (Granovetter,
1973) and betweenness centrality (Freeman, 1977) for automatic detection of informal social networks or "invisible colleges" (Crane, 1972) and central "gatekeepers," as well as for tracking interdisciplinary connections across scientific domains (Björneborn & Ingwersen, 2001; Björneborn, 2004).
Finally, future visualization tools of Web search engines may get more sophisticated, for instance, with zoomable maps of topical Web clusters and cross-topic small-world shortcuts. Such maps might facilitate the aforementioned complementarities of convergent goal-directed searching and divergent serendipitous browsing and information encountering (Björneborn, 2004).
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Chang, S. J., & Rice, R. E. (1993). Browsing : a multidimensional framework. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 28, 231—276.
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Nature, 393, 440-442.
57
Nan Lin's Theory of Social Capital
Catherine A. Johnson School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, USA johnson@sois.uwm.edu
The notion of social capital was popularized during the early 1990s by scholars working in several different fields, and different lenses for viewing social capital thus abound. For instance, sociologist James Coleman and political scientist Robert Putnam consider social capital to be a collective resource and it is the strong interconnections between individuals which foster "sturdy norms of generalized reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social trust" (Putnam, 1995, p. 66). Other researchers, such as Nan Lin of Duke University, view social capital as an individual resource. Lin's theory of social capital is rooted in the con' cepts of social network analysis, which provides methodological tools for investigating the relationships or ties between individuals. The network of relationships comprises the social network. Social resources are the goods possessed by individuals in the network and can consist of intangible goods such as social status, research collaboration, and information as well as material goods, such as money or a car. These goods are considered social resources because they are available to an individual through his or her social relationships. Access to these resources depends on the relationship with the individual possessing the resource and where one is located in the social structure.
Social capital, therefore, is defined by Lin (2001b, p. 12), as "resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive actions." The theory explains how the quality of social resources available to an individual within his or her social network influences the success of achieving desired outcomes or goals. People with better social capital are more likely to get ahead than people with poorer social capital. The theory of social capital grew out of Lin's social resources theory (Lin & Dumin, 1986). The impetus for the theory was to better define what social capital is and provide a method for measuring it.
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The Social Constructionist Viewpoint on Information Practices 329
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The Social Constructionist Viewpoint on Information Practices
Kimmo Tuominen The Library of Parliament, Finland Kimmo. Tuominen@eduskunta. fi
SannaTalja and Reijo Savolainen Department of Information Studies University of Tampere, Finland Sanna.Talja@uta.fi and Reijo.Savolainen@uta.fi
Social constructionism (constructionism) focuses on talk, interaction, and language use in various contexts. In information studies, construe-tionism provides a dialogic viewpoint to study the assumptions and implicit theories that people draw on when they engage in information practices and produce accounts of them. This kind of discursive infor-rnaLion research (DIR) aims at capturing the socially and culturally shaped ways of understanding information practices, that is, the practices of seeking, accessing, creating, using, and sharing information.
From the constructionist viewpoint, the concept "information practice" is preferred over "information behavior," since the former assumes that the processes of information seeking and use are constituted socially and dialogically, rather than based on the ideas and motives of individual actors. All human practices are social, and they originate from the interactions between the members of a community.
A common assumption of information behavior research is that information seeking and retrieval are affected by cognitive, affective, and task-related factors. From the constructionist viewpoint, people's accounts of their "innermost" emotions and thoughts draw upon historically formed discourses and vocabularies (Tuominen, Talja, & Savolainen, 2002). People's talk about their experiences and emotions is oriented toward making their own and others' acts meaningful and understandable. People thus not only describe but also produce and build
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their experience, emotions, identities, and social worlds through dialogue and discourse.
Constructionism is, in the widest sense, a synonym for "the linguistic turn" in the human and social sciences. It is not a single theory but a bundle of theoretical frameworks that have been influenced by the work of classical figures such as Mihail Bakhtin (1981), Valentin Volosinov (1986), Harold Garfinkel (1984), and Michel Foucaidt (1972). Common to all these theorists is an emphasis on the essential role of language use in the production of social reality. In the 1920s and 1930s, Bakhtin and Volosinov criticized individualistic and mentalistic assumptions of knowledge construction, and formulated theoretical premises that research approaches such as cultural studies and discursive psychology later built upon.
The most commonly used research methods in social constructionist research are conversation analysis and discourse analysis. In the 1960s, Garfinkel founded the ethnomethodological research tradition that aims at capturing the ways in which everyday life is routinely and intersub-jectively accomplished. Leaning on the work of Garfinkel, Harvey Sacks (1996) developed the conversation analytic research method that concentrates on fine details of interactive talk—such as turn-takings, hesitations, and sequential patterns—to understand the contextual functions and action-orientation of utterances. Foucault was the first to systematically outline the discourse analytic approach that focuses on how reality is represented in talk and texts, and on the consequences of different ways of representing reality. Later, Jonathan Potter (1996), Margaret Wetherell (Wetherell & Potter, 1996), Ian Parker (2002), Derek Edwards (1997), and others, many of whom are founding members of the Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG, 2004), developed methods such as the analysis of interpretive repertoires that combine features of the conversation analytic tradition and Foucauldian discourse analysis. Kenneth Gergen (2001), Rom Harre (1994), and John Shotter (1993) wrote important constructionist works on knowledge production, the formation of selves and identities, and the role of mental vocabularies in social life.
Related to conversation and discourse analytic research traditions is the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), a research program promoted by figures such as Bruno Latour (Latour & Woolgar, 1981), Steve
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Woolgar (1988), and Karin Knorr Cetina (1981). In an ethnomethcxl ological spirit, SSK aims at capturing the taken-for-granted practices of collective knowledge construction in scientific fields. This tradition has generated insightful analyses on how everyday scientific practices often radically diverge from the textbook model of how objective research residts shoidd be generated. Empirical studies undertaken in SSK commonly apply ethnographic methods, which are as applicable in constructionist studies as conversation and discourse analytic methods.
In science and technology studies, the social shaping of technology (SST) perspective (Bijker et al., 1987) is important from the viewpoint of information practice research, as it extends the scope of research from social issues of information seeking and technology use to the formation and nature of technical artifacts. In SST, neither information technology nor its uses are understood as stable, uncontested phenomena. The social constructionist theory of technology (SCOT) widens the analytical perspective even further by focusing on "the regimes of truth which surround, uphold, impale, and represent technology" (Grint & Woolgar, 1997, p. 32).
Constructionist studies analyze information, information technology, and information users as conversational constructs produced within the boundaries of specific discourses and epistemic positions. Constructionists start from the assumption that when we study information needs, users' sense making, or relevance criteria, we are always concerned with practices of language use that are "overt, public, disciplined, and institutionalized" (Frohmann, 2001). Contributions by Talja (1997), Talja, Keso, and Pietilainen (1999), Tuominen (1997, 2001), and Tuomincn and Savolainen (1997) discuss the potentials and implications of constructionism as a theoretical and methodological framework in the study of information practices. Pettigrew's (1999) empirical study showed how sensitive issues like information sharing in clinical services can be analyzed by utilizing a constructionist understanding of information as an interactional accomplishment. Julien and Given (2003) discuss how academic librarians construct the identities of faculty members and how these constructions might be detrimental for the attempt to build collaborative relationships with the faculty.
In the field of everyday life information seeking, Given (2002), McKenzie (2003), and Tuominen (2001) have undertaken empirical studies
focusing on participants' accounts of their information practices. These studies bring into sight the presuppositions or "moral narratives" related to information seeking and use and demonstrate the influence of these narratives on information practices and information seekers' identities. Information practices look different and reveal new sides when looked at from the viewpoint of DIR.
Constructionism opens up multiple potential research venues to pursue. Through its focus on situated action and interaction, constructionism can, for instance, inform the analysis of collaborative information seeking and retrieval. Recently, Tuominen, Talja, and Savolainen (2003) have applied constructionist ideas in digital library research by suggesting a way of designing digital libraries as places of collective knowledge construction.
Studying how information practices, actors, and technologies are constructed in discourse and conversation provides a broader sociological perspective for understanding information seeking and information technology use. As discourses mediate much of our understanding of the world, the "regimes of truth" prevailing in institutional and everyday contexts also have practical implications. Therefore, an increased understanding of such implicit theories and their implications makes it possible to adopt new approaches in research and design aimed at supporting people's mundane information practices.
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