Information Experience in Theory and Design

Tim Gorichanaz

• Verlag: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Jahr: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839093708
• Thema: Business
• Thema: Information Management

In this volume, author Tim Gorichanaz seeks to re-frame the discussion of information engagement through the lens of information experience, an exciting emerging area within information science.
Unlike traditional information behavior research, which is limited to how people need, seek, and search for information, information experience looks at how people understand, use, and are shaped by information. In this way, information experience connects with other human-centered areas of information research and design, including information literacy and human–computer interaction.
Split into three parts, Information Experience in Theory and Design presents a multifaceted investigation of information experience, centered around the themes of understanding, self, and meaning. Part One (Understanding) explores the link between information, understanding and questioning; how moral change arises from information; and how to design for understanding. Part Two (Self) explores the concept of the human self as information; the links between information, identity and society; and how to design for self-care. Finally, Part Three (Meaning) explores the connection between information and meaning; how meaning and craft contribute to the good life; and how to design for meaning.
Offering a rigorous theoretical foundation for information experience and insights for design, Gorichanaz brings together research from across the information field as well as philosophy. For researchers or students in any area of the information field, from librarianship to human–computer interaction, this is an exciting new text investigating a fascinating new field of study.

Part I
Understanding

Chapter 1

Information and Understanding

Abstract

Information studies is concerned with information, but what is information for? That question is usually answered with reference to epistemic aims, the default of which is generally assumed to be knowledge. Following recent work in epistemology, this chapter argues that, from the perspective of information experience, understanding is an epistemic aim well suited to the field. Understanding refers to the grasping of inferential and explanatory relationships among a body of information. Two forms of understanding can be distinguished: ontological and ontic. Ontological understanding is the background activity through which perception and mentation happen. Thus, ontological understanding is a matter of an agent's conscious and experiential engagement with their environment – in short, it is one's making sense of their situation. Over this background, ontic understanding is made. Ontic understanding can be defined as a coherent and self-transparent network of knowledge that has been constructed by a conscious agent through ontological understanding. All in all, the concept of understanding provides an account for how bodily experience, recorded information, and other forms of information can contribute epistemically in concert.

Keywords: Information; understanding; learning; knowledge; ontic; ontological

1.1 Introduction

In this book, I will discuss the central concepts of information experience as a research domain and, along the way, present some research on information experience as a phenomenon. I view information experience as part of the broader field of information studies, and so a way in to our discussion is to consider the concepts and purpose of information studies writ large.

To start with an obvious point, information studies is concerned with information. But what does this mean? Answering that question, we might attempt to define information. Doing so is difficult, not least because the word denotes on one hand something objective and quantifiable, and on the other hand something subjective and qualitative. Even focusing on just one of these denotations, information is quite hard to pin down, which may be surprising given its ubiquity. Information is our medium, to use that word in the biological sense. Or perhaps it is not so surprising, since those things closest at hand are often the most difficult to define. Saint Augustine made a similar observation about time: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not” (Saint Augustine, 2002).

Another approach is to examine what information itself is for. That is, what does information matter? In a sense, this is the path taken by scholars such as Furner (2004), who emphasizes that information studies isn't generally concerned with information per se, but rather with the processes around information, including preservation and access. Similarly, in information behavior, information is not considered as an end in itself, but rather it is used for some purpose in the world. Understanding information, then, is a matter of understanding how information is used. This question has not traditionally been of interest to information studies, but it is becoming increasingly necessary to address. One reason for this is the growing complexity of sociotechnical systems in today's society and the attendant need for people to be able to marshal information from multiple sources to solve problems given changing constraints.

For my part, I will address the question of what information is for in terms of its aims, or goals, or ends. That is, what does information move us toward, as individuals and societies?

There are many levels of abstraction on which we can think about aims, and throughout this book we will consider three sorts of aims. In Part 1, we will examine epistemic aims, or those related to human knowing. As I will discuss in this chapter, I view understanding as a chief epistemic aim for information experience and information studies more generally. In Part 2, we will look at ontological aims, and specifically the self. And in Part 3, we will examine ethical aims, or those related to moving forward – and specifically, the aim of meaning.

In this chapter, I will argue that understanding is an epistemic aim well suited to information experience. Here understanding refers to one's grasping of inferential and explanatory relationships among a body of information. We can distinguish two forms of understanding: ontological, an ongoing background engagement of a person with their environment; and ontic, a particular network of knowledge that the person has constructed. Among other benefits, the concept of understanding provides an account for how bodily experience, recorded information, and other forms of information can contribute epistemically in concert – which is urgent given the shifting focus of information studies to encompass these other forms of information.

1.2 Information and Epistemology

Egan and Shera (1952) observed that information services in their time were overly fragmented, blighted by microcosmic thinking. In a time of technological and scientific explosion, this would no longer suffice: it was “economically wasteful and intellectually frustrating… a Rube-Goldbergian mechanism so intricate and so cumbersome that it is in danger of falling of its own weight” (p. 125). Information studies, they said, was in need of macrocosmic thinking – theorizing, in other words – that would unify information services in a way analogous to an efficient national railroad system.

They proposed, as a guiding theory for information studies, the concept of social epistemology. Whereas epistemology in general tends to look at individuals' knowledge, social epistemology examines the knowledge of a society. In their words, social epistemology is “the study of those processes by which society as a whole seeks to achieve a perceptive or understanding relation to the total environment” (Egan & Shera, 1952, p. 132). Within this framework, many different institutions and scholarly fields play roles; their focus was on the information professions. Through the lens of social epistemology, information professionals are responsible for facilitating the flow of knowledge throughout a society, which is accomplished chiefly by organizing and providing access to documents.

A different approach to epistemology in information studies takes not the social perspective but a personal one. This seems to be the orientation underlying much information seeking research, though it has generally not been made explicit. Kelly (2019) has recently reviewed this work, discussing points of relevance in the psychological literature on personal epistemology and epistemics to human-centered information research.

Egan and Shera (1952) were the first to connect information studies and epistemology (Fallis, 2006; Furner, 2010), and that connection persists to this day (Dick, 2013). Fallis (2006, p. 508), for example, writes that “helping people to acquire knowledge is the main objective of libraries and other information services.” While this may seem overly obvious, epistemology is not the only possible philosophical basis for the information professions, and nor has it historically been the only one. For example, the first library was proclaimed to be a “house for healing the soul” (Lutz, 1978) and the nineteenth-century public library movement appealed mostly to socialization (e.g., of immigrants) (Wiegand, 2015). Consider also how libraries provide not just factual information but also works of fiction, to say nothing of Internet access which may be used for any number of activities that are not connected to knowledge, per se. As such, ontology and ethics are surely just as important as epistemology, threads that will be picked up in Parts 2 and 3 of this book, respectively.

1.3 Epistemic Aims for Information

When considering the epistemic aims of information, knowledge may be the first one that comes to mind (Fallis, 2006). When we seek information, oftentimes we are really looking for knowledge. What other epistemic aims are possible? Let us return to Egan and Shera's 1952 definition of social epistemology; they make reference not to knowledge but rather to understanding, which has seen a resurgence of late (Bawden & Robinson, 2016a, 2016b). Other recent work in information studies, particularly in information literacy, focuses on learning (e.g. Bruce, 2008). And lastly, a seldom-mentioned but intriguing epistemic aim is wisdom (Ackoff, 1989). In this section, I will give a brief overview of these various epistemic aims. While each is worthy of attention, I find understanding to be the most useful conceptual focus for work in information experience. For this reason, in the following section, I develop a theory of understanding in more detail.

1.3.1 Knowledge

Knowledge is perhaps the most discussed epistemic aim in information studies (Fallis, 2006). This is not surprising, as it's also the most discussed epistemic aim in epistemology – indeed, epistemology is often glossed as the “study of knowledge” (Greco, 2014).

Despite myriad discussion, there is no agreement on a definition of knowledge (Furner, 2010; Rowley, 2007). In information studies, knowledge is sometimes seen as any or a mix of epistemic content, capability, experience, skills, and values (Rowley, 2007). However, it is construed, scholars in information studies generally connect knowledge to information, whether seeing knowledge as a certain type or part of information (Yu, 2015), or as information that has been processed in a particular way (Bates, 2006; Floridi, 2011a). Roughly, two groupings of definitions can be identified: knowledge as true information (i.e., objective or explicit knowledge) and knowledge as individually internalized information (i.e., personal or implicit knowledge) (Furner, 2010). While information studies historically focused on explicit information, such as that recorded in documents, more recent work seems to be emphasizing implicit knowledge. Such discussions tend to see knowing and acting as inseparable (Day, 2005; Lloyd, 2011; Tsoukas, 2011); for example, one's knowing how to ride a bike is not something that can be put into words and taught verbally, but rather it is embodied and can only be exemplified.

In this context, those studying knowledge face the challenge of a lack of conceptual clarity in the field, in part due to paradigmatic entrenchment. This may result in a researcher misapprehending certain examples of knowledge and overlooking others. Still, those examining knowledge may benefit from a broad and deep literature employing each of the various conceptualizations of knowledge, in information studies and beyond.

1.3.2 Learning

Another epistemic aim invoked in information studies is that of learning. An interest in learning emerged with the information literacy movement, which can be traced back to the 1960s (Tuominen, Savolainen, & Talja, 2005). “The central thrust of the movement is to integrate library and information skills more fully with the learning process” (Tuominen et al., 2005, p. 332). Information and learning work, within and beyond information literacy proper, has burgeoned; a recent landmark in its proliferation was the founding in 2017 of the journal Information and Learning Sciences, which publishes work at the intersection of information and education.

At root, learning can be described as a change in one's understanding (Limberg, 1998). But not just any change can be described as learning; rather, learning is a change consonant with a particular objective, usually identified ahead of time. Oftentimes, the learning process involves a teacher who establishes the objectives, but one may also learn on their own – this latter case has become prominent since the 1990s with the advent of “lifelong learning” (Tuominen et al., 2005). Historically learning in information studies has been conceived as a person's coming to possess a certain set of skills (e.g., being able to locate information on a topic of interest, being able to use such technology), but more recent discussions emphasize that learning is always situational and contextual (Bruce, 2008; Limberg, 1998; Tuominen et al., 2005). In other words, learning is about becoming a skilled actor in a particular domain, rather than coming to embody general principles. In information literacy, researchers and practitioners focus on the role of information in a person's building of such skills and experience (Bruce, 2008; Limberg & Sundin, 2006). And whereas earlier paradigms in learning theory focused on the cognitive or behavioral processes of learning, today researchers and teachers are coming to recognize experiential processes (Harasim, 2012), which is also coming manifest in information literacy (Bruce, 2008; Bruce, Davis, Hughes, Partridge, & Stoodley, 2014), as discussed in the introduction of this book.

Learning, then, is a specific form of knowledge construction which makes reference to learning outcomes (objects, objectives, or goals) usually established ahead of time. The research generally, but not always, refers to processes in educational settings (e.g., universities and specifically academic libraries), but it may prove useful in other contexts where there is a clear goal.

1.3.3 Understanding

A third epistemic aim for information is understanding. Sometimes when we seek information, we are looking for understanding: to understand how something works or why something happened. There have been some discussions of understanding in information studies, reaching back to Russell Ackoff's famed DIKUW pyramid (Ackoff, 1989). Recall also that Egan and Shera's definition of social epistemology made reference to understanding rather than knowledge (Egan & Shera, 1952). Ackoff described understanding as the grasping of causal relations among pieces of knowledge. In contrast, Bellinger, Castro, and Mills (2004) saw understanding not as an entity but rather as a process, e.g., the way the human mind transforms data into information. Besides these papers, the concept of understanding saw virtually no comment in information studies until the work of Bawden and Robinson (2016a, 2016b).

In philosophy, epistemologists have begun to consider understanding as well. Broadly, understanding is said to refer to the apprehension of inferential and explanatory relationships among a body of information (or, perhaps, of knowledge or meaning, depending on how these terms are defined) (Baumberger, Beisbart, & Brun, 2017). Jonathan Kvanvig and Timothy Williamson in particular have argued that understanding is more valuable than knowledge (the traditional scholarly object of epistemology) for two reasons (Kvanvig, 2003; Williamson, 2000). First, understanding gives a way to acknowledge shades of gradation, rather than the binary of known/unknown. Second, understanding is immune to what philosophers call epistemic luck, the idea that if you “know” something without having a convincing justification, then you do not truly have knowledge of it; with understanding, on the other hand, justification is built in, as a conscious agent puts together various pieces of information into a coherent web (Kvanvig, 2003). Most recently, philosophers have been debating the prospect of group understanding (Boyd, 2019): can groups be said to possess understanding, or only individuals?

Drawing on this epistemological work, Bawden and Robinson (2016a, 2016b) suggest that understanding is a particularly useful epistemic aim for information studies to consider. For one, helping people understand may present an antidote to information overload. Moreover, understanding helps better account for inconsistencies and outdated information (which perhaps do not qualify as knowledge) that constitute a share of library collections – not to mention works of art and fiction (see Briesen, 2014; Elgin, 2002). Separately, I proposed that understanding may be useful to the field as a way to conceptually unify the diverse forms of knowledge in the field (pure meaning, upgraded information, embodied action), as discussed above (Gorichanaz, 2018d).

In all, understanding is just beginning to be considered in information studies, but already it is clear that it makes up for several of the shortcomings of focusing on knowledge or learning.

1.3.4 Wisdom

The final epistemic aim that has been discussed in information studies is wisdom. This aim has been of longstanding interest in philosophy (the word philosophy, after all, can be calqued as “love of wisdom”). As reviewed by philosopher Sharon Ryan, throughout history wisdom has been defined variously in terms of humility, accuracy, and abundance (Ryan, 2014). A recent definition defines wisdom as knowing many things, having committed to live rationally, and being sensitive to one's limitations (Ryan, 2012).

Outside philosophy, Gugerell and Riffert (2011) note growing interest in wisdom across the social and human sciences. Within information studies specifically, the first to mention wisdom was Ackoff (1989), for whom wisdom topped the epistemic pyramid (Rowley, 2006). Ackoff defined wisdom as evaluated understanding, i.e., one's abil...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover
• Series Editor
• Editorial Board
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I UNDERSTANDING
• PART II SELF
• PART III MEANING
• Conclusion
• References
• Index