Engineering Commons^™

Way-Finding: A New Approach To Studying Digital Communications, William Daniel Glade

Theses and Dissertations

This work further develops the way-finding model first proposed by Pearson and Kosicki (2017) which examines the flow of information in the digital age. Way-finding systems are online systems that help individuals find information—i.e. social media, search engines, email, etc. Using a grounded theory methodology, this new framework was explored in greater detail. Way-finding theory was created using the context of the elaboration likelihood model, gatekeeping theory, algorithmic gatekeepers, and the existence of the filter bubble phenomenon. This study establishes the three basic pillars of way-finding theory: the user’s mindset when accessing way-finding systems, the perception of how popular way-finding …