The purpose of this essay is to explore why Spink, found that browsing online pornography requires more time and effort than general searches online. Recent information-seeking behavior research concerning online pornography neglects to examine sexuality or desire as factors influencing this particular information activity. As such, I rely on Lacan's theory of desire, Freud's theory of cathexis, and existential phenomenology, a philosophical method that emphasizes an interpretation of perception and bodily activity, in order to examine the way our embodied relations with the technological apparatus of the computer effect the time and effort of browsing online pornography. In the process, I offer an explanation of subjective analysis as a new mode of description for understanding certain aspects of information activity.

Information Science researchers have been relatively slow to consider the role of the body in understanding the relationship between people, information and technology. This panel will discuss how a consideration of the body can enrich information researchers' understanding of the complex relationship between people, information and technologies, old and new. Each panel member will briefly describe their own theoretical and methodological approach and how they have informed their understanding. This will be followed by a moderated discussion between the panel and audience members.

No abstract

is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Studies, with a concentration in the Women's Studies Department at UCLA. His research considers what differences feminism, gender studies, sexuality studies, and notions of queer, make to prevailing ideas about information structure, seeking, and ethics.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present two models of human cognition. The first narrow model concentrates on the mind as an information-processing apparatus, and interactions with information as altering thought structures and filling gaps in knowledge. A second model incorporates elements of unconsciousness, embodiment and affect. The selection of one model over the other, often done tacitly, has consequences for subsequent models of information seeking and use. Design/methodology/approach A close reading of embodied engagements with pornography guided by existential phenomenology. Findings The paper develops a phenomenology of information seeking, centered primarily around the work of Merleau-Ponty, to justify a more expansive concept of cognition. The authors demonstrate the roles of affect and embodiment in document assessment and use, with a prolonged example in the realm of browsing pornography. Originality/value Models of information seeking and use need to account for diverse kinds of human-document interaction, to include documents such as music, film and comics that engage the emotions or are perceived through a broader band of sensory experience to include visual and auditory components. The authors consider how those human-document engagements form virtual communities based on the similarity of their members’ affective and embodied responses, which in turn inform the arrangements, through algorithms, of the relations of documents to each other. Less instrumental forms of information seeking and use – ones that incorporate elements of embodiment and affect – are characterized as esthetic experiences, following the definition of the esthetic provided by Dewey. Ultimately the authors consider, given the ubiquity of information seeking and its rhythm in everyday life, whether we can meaningfully characterize information seeking as a distinct human process.