Information experience as an object of LIS research: a definition based on concept analysis
ISSN: 0022-0418
Article publication date: 9 March 2022
Issue publication date: 4 October 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to the clarification of core concepts in information experience research and to the consolidation of information experience as a distinctive research object.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a series of techniques from Wilson's toolkit of concept analysis.
Findings
This study finds that there exist tensions between different uses of the term information experience, giving rise to two fundamentally different conceptions of this particular human experience which this study names, respectively, the posterior conception and the a priori conception. It also finds that it is linguistically more useful, practically more consonant with LIS's concerns and unitarily more consistent to define information experience following the a priori conception. It postulates that information experience can be defined as a person's subjective, pre-reflective living through of his/her life as an information user in the information sphere of the lifeworld.
Research limitations/implications
If adopted by future research, the concept proposed in this study is likely to push information experience research toward a more prominent phenomenological turn on the one hand, and a return to conventional LIS concerns on the other.
Practical implications
The clarified concept may help user experience librarians and system designers to see the relevance of information experience research for their work more clearly.
Originality/value
By identifying, comparing and discussing different existing uses of information experience, and by suggesting a redefinition of the concept, this study has brought the core concepts of information experience research to a new level of clarity, and has verified information experience as a distinctive object for LIS research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71974103). The authors would like to thank Professor Yuxiang Chris Zhao of Nanjing University of Science and Technology for reading the draft of this paper and for his inspiring comments. They would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their very critical and insightful review which inspired substantial revision of the manuscript.
Citation
Yu, L. and Liu, Y. (2022), "Information experience as an object of LIS research: a definition based on concept analysis", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 78 No. 6, pp. 1487-1508. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2021-0195
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited