May 15, 2012

Dorcas KrubuPhD Candidate

Department of Library and Information ScienceUniversity of the Western Cape

South Africa

by

Gary Burnett and Paul Jaeger (2011)

The largest contributors to the foundation of the theory of information worlds are:

Elfreda Chatman – Library and Information Science Scholar

Jürgen Habermas – Social Scientist

Focused on:

settings constrained by socio-economic poverty

limited access to formal information resources

Small social units/structures

Small world is not evaluative

Day-to-day activities and interests are structured and defined by a recognizable set of social norms

Is the social environment(s) in which an inter-connected group of individuals live and work/study, bonded together by common interests, expectations and behaviours, and often by economic status and geographic (or ‘virtual’) proximity as well

Focused on:

large public sphere

an expansive life world

largest social structure

Habermas believes that l i fe world is based on communication, agreement and consensus

Life World is the collective information and social environment

A mass of traditional and new media, channels and services

The intermediate / meso world which can mediate between the small world and the life world

Macro/Life World

There are three levels of access to information and information technology:

Physical Access

There are three levels of access to information and information technology:

Intel lectual Access

There are three levels of access to information and information technology:

Social AccessThis is the abil i ty to communicate and use the information in social contexts

Context personal communicationentertainmenteducation work sett ings

These days, social access is now heavily dependent on ICTs

5 social elements of the theory of information behaviour:

Social norms

Social types

Information value

Information behaviour

boundaries

Context Context is becoming an integrated multiple rather than singular (Erdelez,

2009)

Information Behaviour Models Robert Taylor (1968) - Identif ied 4 levels of information

seeking

Nicholas Belkin (1978) - Proponent of ASK

Brenda Dervin (1978) - Sense making theory

Carol Kulthau (1991) - ISP process (focuses on the emotional state that accompanies information seeking)

T.D. Wilson (1999) – Information process

The theory of Information Worlds posit that Information needs is

also a function of the information worlds in which people l ive

The theory of information worlds is unique in its the approaches because it goes beyond the local and ‘everyday’ sett ings.

I t looks at information behaviour also in the l ight of the mass media as well as federal — and even global — information policy

The behaviours of individuals are not solely individual acts but also always mirror the norms, attitudes, values and concerns of the communities (or ‘worlds’) of which they are a part

In any information setting there are several important actors:

an individual and the information world of which that individual is a part

Some sort of information system or source (whether formal, as in a l ibrary, or informal as in a trusted friend)

larger-scale forces including the media, polit ical structures and other culture-wide information worlds/virtual world.