Geographies of information behaviour: a conceptual exploration

Abstract

Purpose

This article examines the relation between place, space and information behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

Concepts of place and space are explored through a comparison of three leisure pursuits: running, urban exploration and genealogy, based on the authors' research and the published literature.

Findings

A socially constructed meaning of place is central to each leisure activity but how it is experienced physically, emotionally and imaginatively are different. Places have very different meanings within each practice. Mirroring this, information behaviours are also very different: such as the sources used, the type of information created and how it is shared or not shared. Information behaviour contributes to the meanings associated with place in particular social practices.

Research limitations/implications

Meaning attached to place can be understood as actively constructed within social practices. Rather than context for information behaviours in the sense of an outside, containing, even constraining, environment, the meaning of place can be seen as actively constructed within social practices and by the information behaviours that are part of them.

Originality/value

The paper adds a new perspective to the understanding of place and space in the study of information behaviour.

Citation

Cox, A. and Fulton, C. (2022), "Geographies of information behaviour: a conceptual exploration", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 78 No. 4, pp. 745-760. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2021-0105