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Metatheories, orientations, paradigms and frameworks
for human information behavior
INSC 510
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Discussion
• Metatheories, orientations, paradigms and frameworks?
• Does Information Science have successive, defining theoretical models and frameworks?
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• Traditional/ Physical• User oriented• Cognitive viewpoint• Sensemaking• Social
constructionism
HumanInformationBehavior
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• System oriented paradigm - physical paradigm; information transfer model, empiricism
•user oriented paradigm• Cognitive view• Sensemaking• Social constructionism
constructivist
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System oriented paradigm
• Objective view of information• Users seen as mechanistic and passive• User behavior predicted according to general
variables - age, income• Atomistic - focus on user’s interaction with
system; point of contact only• focus on external behaviors; contact with
system is indication of need and behavior• individuality regarded as chaotic• quantitative
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User oriented paradigm• subjective information• constructivist active user• situationality• wholistic views of experience• internal cognitions• systematic individuality• qualitative research
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The cognitive view…(B.C. Brookes)
• Any processing of information - whether perceptual or symbolic - is mediated by a system of categories or concepts, which, for the processing device, are a model of its world (De Mey)
K[s] + i = k[s + s]
Knowledgestructure Information
Modified knowledgestructure
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The cognitive view (Ingwersen)
The world model consists of knowledge structures. These are determined by the individual and social/ collective experiences, education and training etc.
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Sensemaking
Situation Uses(Helps)
Gap faced
Gap bridged
Questions answered, ideasformed, resourcesobtained
Strategies usedinfo values sought
DiscontinuityCondition
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Sensemaking moment
Situation
Gap Use (Help)
Circlingtheexperience
Each momentis potentially asensemaking moment
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Social Constructionism
– The primary human reality is about people in conversation
– communication and conversation are used to structure and organize social reality
– focus on public and social not private and subjective
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Social contructionism
• Emphasizes the negotiation of meaning– reality construction through discourse– there is no versionless reality
• rejects monologism and replaces this with dialogism
– the most important things take place in interaction, in discursive practices between people not within the individual cut off from his or her social relationships
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Social constructionism• Assumes that we construct
versions of reality between ourselves
• Knowledge is something people do together rather than an individual possession