Australian motor sport enthusiasts’ leisure information behaviour

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts, examining: their information needs; their information seeking and sharing; what personal information they had; and their satisfaction with their information seeking and personal information management efforts. Design/methodology/approach This exploratory study examined participants’ information behaviour from a postpositivist and inductive research approach. An online survey was completed by 81 motor sport enthusiasts. The quantitative survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics, whilst the qualitative data were analysed using thematic coding. Findings The research findings highlighted that enthusiasts engaged in mixed serious leisure. They required information before, during and after race events, and sought this primarily from online sources, as well as from other individuals. Totally, 90 participants shared information about their interest in motor sport with family, friends and fellow enthusiasts, primarily via e-mails (69 per cent) and Facebook (49 per cent). They also gathered information about motor sport, including photographs and memorabilia. Participants were satisfied with their information management strategies for their personal collections. Research limitations/implications Participants were limited to motor sport enthusiasts in Australia, hence findings cannot be generalised more broadly. Practical implications Understandings of enthusiasts’ information behaviour provide information management professionals with insights to work with this user community. Originality/value This study fills a gap in the literature about leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts in Australia. It identifies and provides a typology of the 12 categories of information needed by enthusiasts. Provides a preliminary motor sport information behaviour model guided by the conceptual frameworks of the everyday life information seeking model; general models on information behaviour; and the information problem solving behaviour model.

A case study of records management practices in historic motor sport

“…VSCC recognises its records management issues but is unable to afford systems and expertise to implement sustainable recordkeeping practices. Strategies for improving records management practices for CAMS and VSCC are presented in an upcoming paper being peer-reviewed, which compliments findings reported in another peer-reviewed article titled Australian motor sport enthusiasts’ leisure information behavior (Joseph, 2016).…”

“…Strategies for improving records management practices for CAMS and VSCC are presented in an upcoming paper being peer-reviewed, which compliments findings reported in the peerreviewed article titled Australian motor sport enthusiasts' leisure information behavior (Joseph, 2016).…”

Towards an everyday life information literacy mind-set: a review of literature

“…Since the development of Savolainen's ELIS framework numerous studies have been conducted with an emphasis on diverse hobby-related ELIS, focusing on specific hobbyists, such as online museum visitors (Skov, 2013), genealogists and family historians (Fulton & Vondracek, 2009;Yakel, 2004), people who read for pleasure (Ross, 1999), gourmet cooks (Hartel, 2003;2006;, knitters (Prigoda & McKenzie, 2007), food bloggers (Cox & Blake, 2011), motor sport enthusiasts (Joseph, 2016) and different types of collectors (Case, 2009;Lee & Trace, 2009 Similarly, Gunton (2011) used Bruce's definition of IL as "informed learning" (i.e. a way of using information to learn) to investigate how members of the church community experience and engage with information for the pursuit of spiritual wellness and the cultivation of lifelong learning.…”

Untangling the knot: The information practices of enthusiast car restorers

“…In recent years a small but growing number of information researchers have studied leisure‐based communities (for example, Case, ; Fulton, ; Hartel, ), including one study in a motorsport context (Joseph, ). The overwhelming majority of such studies locate themselves within the information behavior umbrella discourse (Savolainen, ), which a range of critics (for example, Lloyd, ; Olsson, ; Talja & Hansen, ; Talja, Tuominen, & Savolainen, ) argue continues to be dominated by approaches focusing on the purposive behavior of individual information seekers.…”