Library and Information Science Commons^™

"I’M Mixing Comic Book Canon And Mcu Canon To Suit My Own Needs": Information Sharing As Community Building In A Fandom In Flux, Alison Harding

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Utilizing the rapidly changing landscape of the Marvel fandom on fanfiction archive Archive of Our Own (AO3) as a research site, this paper presents the findings of a combined autoethnography and digital ethnography of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier community. The work explores the ways in which a fandom community builds itself through information sharing. While the study garnered many findings, this paper primarily focuses on how tags are vital to crafting community identity, while also creating barriers to entry within the Falcon and the Winter Soldier fandom.

The results show that while the broader Marvel fandom can be …

Information Practices Of Administrators For Controlling Information In An Online Community Of New Mothers In Rural America, Devendra Potnis, Macy Halladay

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Rarely does any empirical investigation show how administrators routinely control information in online communities and alleviate misinformation, hate speech, and information overload supported by profit-driven algorithms. Thematic analysis of in-depth phone interviews with members and administrators of a “Vaginal Birth After Cesarean” (VBAC) group with over 500 new mothers on Facebook shows that the administrators make 19 choices for recurring, authoritative but evolving 19 information-related activities when (a) forming the VBAC group over Facebook for local new mothers, (b) actively recruiting women who had a VBAC or have related competencies, (c) removing doctors and solicitors from the group, (d) setting …

Examining Young Children's Information Practices And Experiences: A Child-Centered Methodological Approach, Sarah C. Barriage

Information Science Faculty Publications

Researchers interested in children and youth's engagement with information have developed participatory, multi-method approaches of collecting and analyzing data directly with children and youth. However, examples of this approach in studies specifically focused on young children in library and information science are scarce. This article describes the methodological approach used in a study of 5- to 7-year-old children's information practices and experiences related to their individual interests. Drawing on conceptual frameworks from both library and information science and childhood studies, this study used multiple methods of data collection in understanding young children's own perspectives of their information activities. Namely, data …

Young Children’S Information-Seeking Practices In Center-Based Childcare, Sarah C. Barriage

Information Science Faculty Publications

Many children in the USA spend a significant amount of time in center-based childcare. However, research has yet to explore their information practices in this setting. This study investigates young children’s perceptions of the concept of information and their own information-seeking practices within the context of their day care classroom. The participants included 13 children between three and five years of age. Data was collected using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, child-led photo tours, and photo-elicitation interviews. The findings indicate that the children did not perceive the concept of information in a manner consistent with adult understandings of the term, and …

A Proposal: The Religious Information Practices Of New Kadampa Buddhists: Examining The Informational Nature Of Buddhist Practice And A Prolegomenon To A Buddhist Theory Of Information Practice, Roger Chabot (Kelsang Legden)

FIMS Working Papers

To provide a background for the study, in this section I will introduce the theoretical concepts and population of study that will feature in this project. I begin with an introduction to everyday life information seeking and its intersection with religion and spirituality then follow this with an introduction of religious practices understood as information practices. Afterwards, I provide a rationale for studying Buddhists and provide an introduction to the particular Buddhist sect that will be the focus of the research.

Contentious Information: Accounts Of Knowledge Production, Circulation And Consumption In Transitional Egypt, Ahmad Kamal

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

While the 2011 Egyptian Uprising renewed attention to revolutionary news platforms such as Al-Jazeera and Facebook, citizens continued to be understudied as active consumers of information. Yet citizens’ perceptions of their informational milieu and how they responded in consuming, processing, and interpreting facts offer crucial insight into the turbulent transition that followed the initial uprising. This study analyzes Egyptian citizens’ accounts of their information environment and practices amid socio-political change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 politically-engaged citizens from various political and professional backgrounds. Participants were asked to discuss the state of public discourse, the institutions responsible for the circulation …

The Information Practices Of People Living With Depression: Constructing Credibility And Authority, Tami Oliphant

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Depressive episodes and chronic depression often provide the impetus for both online and offline everyday life information-seeking and sharing and the seeking of support. While allopathic medication, psychiatric, and other biomedical services are the standard treatments for depression, people often use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to supplement or supplant biomedical treatments. Depression is a nebulous disorder with varying causes, illness trajectories, and a wide variety of potentially effective treatments. Often, treating and managing depression forms a project for life (Wikgren, 2001) where the need for information is continuous.

In the present study, I have used a constructionist, discourse analytic …

Connecting With Information Sources: How Accounts Of Information Seeking Take Discursive Action, Pamela J. Mckenzie

FIMS Publications

Taking a discursive approach to information seeking research can allow researchers to move away from considering information seekers’ accounts as transparent and unproblematic representations their information behaviour or underlying cognitive and affective processes. This paper uses a constructivist discourse analytic approach to study the discursive functions performed by accounts of information seeking in a particular context – the ways that individuals use information-seeking stories to “position” themselves discursively. This paper analyses four modes of information practice (Active seeking, Active scanning, Everyday monitoring, Information seeking by proxy) present in participants’ accounts of connecting with information sources. Although the four modes represent …