Abstract:
Understandinq information users and their behavior is a question of central
importance for information research and practice. The paper challenges several
aspects of existing approaches to understanding information behavior, including:
the focus on, individual cognition at the expense of social and affective factors;
the construction of Information users as defined by their areas of ignorance and
uncertainty, rather than their expertise; and the focus on purposive rather than
non-purposive information behavior. It argues that only by addressinq these
weaknesses and developing new research strategies and theoretical frameworks
which focus attention on the social processes and relationships which underpin
users information behavior can we hope to develop a truly holistic understandinq
of the relatlonship between people and information. The paper uses the author's
study of information behavior researcher's constructions of an author (Brenda
Dervin), to illustrate how a social constructivist approach can both build on
existing approaches to information behavior research and address some of their
weaknesses. It argues that social ,constructivist approaches provide a theoretical
lens through which information researchers can gain a clearer picture of
information users not as 'needy' individuals to be 'helped', but as social beings
experts in their own life-worlds.
