Information experience as an object of LIS research: a definition based on concept analysis

Abstract

PurposeThis 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/approachThis study adopts a series of techniques from Wilson's toolkit of concept analysis.FindingsThis 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/implicationsIf 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 implicationsThe clarified concept may help user experience librarians and system designers to see the relevance of information experience research for their work more clearly.Originality/valueBy 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.

On the two conceptualizations of information experience as an object of study: a response to Yu and Liu

“…Yu and Liu's (2022) analysis suggests a problem for information experience research, particularly of the a posteriori variety. As Yu and Liu write: “with the posterior conception, the scope of information experience in a particular situation can be extended to nearly coincide with a person's entire experience in that situation […] this makes the concept of information experience inadequately discriminative in denoting a unique object for research” (p. 12).…”

“…Along these lines, Yu and Liu point out, the conception of information in a posteriori information experience runs the risk of losing face validity. A scholarly concept should track with the way a term is used in everyday speech, and everyday people would not use the word information to describe “people's bodies, flood, supermarket shelves, feelings and the like” (Yu and Liu, 2022, p. 15). Construing these things as information may be going too far.…”

“…At heart, they disambiguate two conceptualizations of information experience as an object of study found in the literature: the a priori conception and the a posteriori conception. Yu and Liu define these as follows: A priori : “experience of predesignated informational or communicative products and associated phenomena” (Yu and Liu, 2022, p. 10) A posteriori : “experience of being informed by anything that a person regards as informative” (Yu and Liu, 2022, p. 10)…”

“…A priori : “experience of predesignated informational or communicative products and associated phenomena” (Yu and Liu, 2022, p. 10)…”

“…A posteriori : “experience of being informed by anything that a person regards as informative” (Yu and Liu, 2022, p. 10)…”