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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