Examining the Impact of Brenda Dervin's Sense‐Making Methodology across Different Fields

Abstract

Brenda Dervin's Sense‐Making Methodology has had a significant impact on communication, information science, and other fields, with over 18,800 citations on Google Scholar. Researchers over the years, including a recent ARIST review, have studied Dervin's work. However, prior research has not analyzed a single article to see how it has been cited over the years across different fields. In this study, we examine 50 of the 1,766 articles published after the year 2000 that cited her 1983 paper. The research question investigated is, “What is the impact of Dervin's Sense Making Methodology in the twenty‐first century in fields outside of information science?” We found that sense‐making has been applied to social media, academia, and health information seeking, among other related fields. The findings should be useful to scholars interested in information science and methodology. The study also shows that information science is not a siloed field and impacts other fields.