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1 – 10 of over 1000Ângela Cristina Salgueiro Marques and Luis Mauro Sá Martino
This chapter elaborates a phenomenological framework for the concept of “communication” by drawing mainly on the notion “lifeworld,” created by Husserl and developed by Habermas…
Abstract
This chapter elaborates a phenomenological framework for the concept of “communication” by drawing mainly on the notion “lifeworld,” created by Husserl and developed by Habermas. The concept of “lifeworld” is approached as a communication-grounded idea.
The chapter is a theoretical essay, grounded mainly on bibliographical research. Main sources are the two volumes of Habermas’ The Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas, 1987), seconded by other works by the German philosopher and some commentators as Stein (2004) e Pizzi (2006). The chapter endeavors to show that the phenomenological notion of “lifeworld” might be key to a critical understanding of main constructivist approaches in communication theory. It could be particularly illuminating where the focus is on a “reality,” which results from intersubjective interactions in everyday life. Most communication theories are media-centered, which means that they regard the “media,” both in its technical and institutional aspects as the main focus of the communication process. This chapter argues that the “lifeworld” is a far broader way to understand communication as a form of social interaction, whether mediated by media technologies or not. The chapter discusses the concept of “lifeworld,” framing its relational and communicative aspects as fundamental to the notion of “reality” as an interactive social creation. It also proposes the understanding of “communication” grounded on this phenomenological notion. Finally, it discusses some problems and limits of this approach, offering an alternative approach to conventional communication theory.
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Tim Gorichanaz, Kiersten F. Latham and Elizabeth Wood
The authors discuss the lifeworld as a research concept for the field of information behaviour, which serves to problematise the concept of unit of analysis. In so doing, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors discuss the lifeworld as a research concept for the field of information behaviour, which serves to problematise the concept of unit of analysis. In so doing, the authors demonstrate how the lifeworld can be adopted as a unit of analysis in information behaviour research, that is, how research can be based in the lifeworld rather than merely looking at the lifeworld. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors first situate our discussion in the current of information behaviour scholarship. The authors then introduce the concepts of lifeworld and unit of analysis and consider how they intersect. Next, to show the importance of the lifeworld, the authors present two recent studies in which the lifeworld emerged. Finally, the authors discuss how lifeworld-based research can be conducted more conscientiously.
Findings
Though many research approaches deal with lived experience in one way or another, they tend not to fully grasp these experiences. As opposed to units of analysis such as individual, social group, person-in-situation, etc., using lifeworld as a unit of analysis allows phenomena to be researched holistically and without reductionism.
Research limitations/implications
The authors limit the discussion to the concept of the lifeworld as developed by Husserl, the concept’s originator. The lifeworld has been discussed and extended by other authors since, but this work is not considered here. The viewpoint is offered as a supplementary perspective, meant to be enriching to our field of study, rather than divisive.
Originality/value
This is the first time the concept of the lifeworld has been fully explicated in information science. As the authors discuss, two recent information behaviour studies that “discovered” the lifeworld through their analysis. Future studies that attend to the lifeworld from the start have the capacity to build on this work and extend the horizons of information science.
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Constantine Iliopoulos and Vladislav Valentinov
The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the issue of preference heterogeneity in cooperatives.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the issue of preference heterogeneity in cooperatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the ideas of Habermas and Luhmann, this paper interprets preference heterogeneity of cooperative members in terms of the precarious relationship between the categories of “system” and “lifeworld.” The argument is buttressed with a case study of an agricultural cooperative recently founded in Central Greece.
Findings
The sensitivity of cooperatives to the lifeworld contexts of their members exacts the price in the form of the member preference heterogeneity problem. If this sensitivity is taken to be the constitutive characteristic of cooperatives, then the proposed argument hammers home their fundamental ambivalence, as they are necessarily fraught with the potential for internal conflict.
Research limitations/implications
The paper urges for a radical rethinking of Georg Draheim’s thesis of the “double nature” of cooperatives. “Double nature” is shown to aggravate the member preference heterogeneity problem.
Practical implications
The results of this study inform the cooperative leaders’ quest to strike a balance between the interests of their members and the demands of the external socio-economic environment.
Originality/value
This research contributes significantly to the literature on collective decision-making costs incurred by cooperatives. The failure of cooperatives to balance the sensitivity to members’ interests and to the external environment is exposed as the root cause of the divergence and heterogeneity of member preferences. This heterogeneity is shown to boost collective decision-making costs.
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April L. Wright and Carla Wright
This essay addresses the topic of research lifeworlds and personal lifeworlds and what we gain and lose as researchers, and as people, from their overlaps and collisions. The…
Abstract
This essay addresses the topic of research lifeworlds and personal lifeworlds and what we gain and lose as researchers, and as people, from their overlaps and collisions. The essay analyses six narrative accounts of the authors lived experience of a unique collision between research and personal lifeworlds when the researcher-mother presented with her sick daughter to the hospital emergency department that served as the field site for her own research. This analysis revealed the following themes through which a researcher’s personhood animates the research process: feeling exposed but empowered; gaining conceptual clarity while opening up ethical ambiguity; and becoming liminal because of identity shifts and coping through self-reflexivity. The essay contributes to our collective understanding and shared learning of the ways a researcher’s personhood shapes, and is shaped by, the research process and (re)production of knowledge.
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Nicola Yelland, Clare Bartholomaeus and Anita Kit-wa Chan
This article reflects on the adaption of Sarah Pink's video re-enactment methodology for exploring children's out-of-school lifeworlds.
Abstract
Purpose
This article reflects on the adaption of Sarah Pink's video re-enactment methodology for exploring children's out-of-school lifeworlds.
Design/methodology/approach
Video re-enactments originate in the work of Sarah Pink who developed the methodology to study everyday routines, including activities associated with people's energy consumption at home. This article discusses the adaption of this methodology for exploring 9–10-year-old children's out-of-school lifeworlds in their homes in the global cities of Hong Kong, Melbourne and Singapore.
Findings
The article reflects on the practical ways in which the video re-enactment methodology was adapted to explore children's out-of-school activities in the three different locations. In terms of activities, the findings highlight that children's out-of-school lifeworlds included regular routines across a week that contribute to and constitute their everyday activities, with varying time spent on leisure, homework and scheduled activities.
Originality/value
The authors discuss and reflect on the implications of adapting a methodology in order to make it relevant and innovative in a new research context. The use of video re-enactments with children to explore their out-of-school activities gives greater insights into their lifeworlds and their engagement in various activities and the opportunity for children to reflect on their everyday lives.
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Joo Ean Tan and Gideon Sjoberg
Among the master social processes occurring in the modern world have been increased individualization, on the one hand, and the growth of largescale organizations, on the other…
Abstract
Among the master social processes occurring in the modern world have been increased individualization, on the one hand, and the growth of largescale organizations, on the other. Unlike most scholars, who emphasize either one or the other, we focus attention upon certain strategic interrelationships between these master processes. We are thus addressing a fundamental sociological issue while at the same time taking development theorizing in a somewhat new direction.
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Catholic social thought presents itself as a reflection by theChurch on socio‐economic issues. The Church in its teachings has alwayshad, and continues to have, an ambivalent…
Abstract
Catholic social thought presents itself as a reflection by the Church on socio‐economic issues. The Church in its teachings has always had, and continues to have, an ambivalent attitude towards the capitalist economic system. This ambivalence has not always expressed itself in the most effective and appropriate ways. Attempts to argue that social analysis from a critical theory perspective is both able to capture effectively the ambivalence which Catholic social thought feels towards capitalism, and to put into a broader theoretical context many of the critiques levelled against the Church′s teachings. This in turn allows for a more cogent presentation of the Church′s normative project.
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This chapter addresses emerging social media cultures and socio-technical practices through the theoretical lens of Theory of Communicative Action. This conceptual scene is used…
Abstract
This chapter addresses emerging social media cultures and socio-technical practices through the theoretical lens of Theory of Communicative Action. This conceptual scene is used to explain the interplay between social media and tourism. It analyzes the paradoxical role of interactive technologies as forces for the reproduction and transformation of this industry. The chapter discusses processes of colonization of personal relations and life-spaces. The analysis shows the ambivalent potential of tourism social media as communicative technologies for emancipation but also as tools for hierarchization, control, and exploitation. Finally, further theoretical examination of technological development and tourism practices is sought.
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The porpose of this study is to critically consider the use of global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines in universities’ sustainability reports.. In light of the recent…
Abstract
Purpose
The porpose of this study is to critically consider the use of global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines in universities’ sustainability reports.. In light of the recent literature and Habermas’s thinking, the study advances the research field by considering the process of internal colonisation from steering institutions and makes suggestions regarding the future role of GRI in the higher education (HE) context.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents a systematic literature review and content analysis for enhancing the critical reading of GRI applications in HE studies. The results are analysed in light of Habermas’s thinking, considering the GRI as a steering institution and its guidelines as steering mechanisms.
Findings
This study updates the literature review on sustainability reporting (SR) at universities and underlines the general trend in the employment of the GRI in this context. The results highlight the need to adapt the GRI to enhance its applicability in the HE context by considering additional dimensions such as research, teaching and operations. In doing so, the framework loses effectiveness and weakens the role of the GRI as a steering institution.
Practical implications
The results suggest that the GRI guidelines should be reframed to enhance comparability among reports and increase its wider employment at universities.
Social implications
Universities need to be guided in their accountability process towards SR by dedicated frameworks. This study suggests the potentially pivotal role that the GRI could play in providing dedicated tools for HE to steer and enhance the development of SRs at universities.
Originality/value
This study presents an updated review of studies on SR at universities and suggests possible paths for the future of the GRI framework applicability to universities’ SR.
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The paper seeks to understand the formation of mutual knowledge in the online world using the phenomenological framework that Alfred Schutz and his associates constructed for the…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to understand the formation of mutual knowledge in the online world using the phenomenological framework that Alfred Schutz and his associates constructed for the examination of the lifeworld.
Design/methodology/approach
This study consists of three parts: reviewing Schutz's theory of the constitution of intersubjectivity in the lifeworld; extending Schutz's analysis to the acquisition of mutual knowledge in the online world; and applying the extended version of Schutz's theory to the booming blogosphere on the internet.
Findings
Schutz divided the contemporaneous lifeworld into two realms – consociates and mere contemporaries. Schutz maintained that people came to know one another based on shared life experiences through “growing older together” in the realm of consociates and based on objectified schemes of interpretation through “ideal typification” in the realm of mere contemporaries. This article extends Schutz's analysis to human interaction on the internet, showing that in the emergent online world people become mutually familiar based on the biographic narratives they recount to one another through self‐disclosure. Mutual knowledge obtained online also contributes to the total stock of knowledge people come to accumulate in an increasingly distanciated lifeworld.
Originality/value
This article argues that the spread of the internet has changed the structure of the lifeworld Schutz depicted, and such changes have produced ways of getting to know others that were previously impossible. In light of those changes, this article seeks to update Schutz's theory of mutual knowledge.
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