Exploring Information Literacy during a Natural Disaster: The 2011 Brisbane Flood
Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice
ISBN: 978-1-78350-815-0, eISBN: 978-1-78350-816-7
Publication date: 12 August 2014
Abstract
This chapter presents the preliminary results of a phenomenographic study aimed at exploring people’s experience of information literacy during the 2011 flood in Brisbane, Queensland. Phenomenography is a qualitative, interpretive and descriptive approach to research that explores the different ways in which people experience various phenomena and situations in the world around them. In this study, semi-structured interviews with seven adult residents of Brisbane suggested six categories that depicted different ways people experienced information literacy during this natural disaster. Access to timely, accurate and credible information during a natural disaster can save lives, safeguard property, and reduce fear and anxiety; however very little is currently known about citizens’ information literacy during times of natural disaster. Understanding how people use information to learn during times of crisis is a new terrain for community information literacy research, and one that warrants further attention by the information research community and the emergency management sector.
Keywords
Citation
Yates, C. and Partridge, H. (2014), "Exploring Information Literacy during a Natural Disaster: The 2011 Brisbane Flood", Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice (Library and Information Science, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-134. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1876-056220140000010006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited