Rethinking context in information research: bounded versus centred sets

Submitted by Isto Huvila on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 22:55

Publication Type:

Journal Article

Authors:

Isto Huvila

Source:

Information Research, Volume 24, Number 4, p.paper colis1912 (2019)

URL:

http://www.informationr.net/ir/24-4/colis/colis1912.html

Keywords:

context, information behaviour, information intra-actions, information studies

Abstract:

Context is one of the key concepts in library and information science research. This paper provides a conceptual overview of the use of the notion of usefulness in library and information science literature, explicates its relation to key parallel concepts, and on the basis of an empirical vignette in the context of health information research, discusses the potential limits and advantages of referring to usefulness instead of and together with other related concepts. The paper is based on conceptual discussion and a selective review of literature. This paper explicates the implications of the traditional approach of conceptualising context in information research as bounded sets or ?quasi-bounded-sets?, and to contrast an alternative view of treating them as centred sets or processes. Instead of seeing context as a single- or multi-layered surrounding, describing it as a centred set makes it a position with affinities to different factors, situations, people or things. Even if all of the approaches have their inherent limitations, the notion of centred set provides means to rethink context and to help to avoid the temptation to treat it as an unspecified container and make it possible to explicate its constituents and their movement toward or from its nucleus.

Taxonomy terms:

Archaeology and Archaeological Information in the Digital Society shows how the digitization of archaeological information, tools and workflows, and their interplay with both old and new non-digital practices throughout the archaeological information process, affect the outcomes of archaeological work, and in the end, our general understanding of the human past.

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Taking Health Information Behaviour into Account: implications of a neglected element for success- ful implementation of consumer health technologies on older adults (HIBA) is an Academy of Finland funded research project at Åbo Akademi University.

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Sheds new light on the potential of extra-academic knowledge-making as a contribution in formations of knowledge throughout society, explores extra-academic knowledge as a useful resource in academy, policy development, evidence based practices, and innovation, and focuses on the informational dimensions, stemming from and grounded in an informationscience perspective, which provides the means to address practical information-related issues throughout knowledge-making processes.

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