Task information types related to data gathering in media studies

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine what types of task information media scholars need while gathering research data to create new knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is qualitative and user-oriented. A total of 25 media scholars were interviewed about their research processes and interactions with their research data. The interviews were semi-structured, complemented by critical incident interviews. The analysis focused on the activity of gathering research data. A typology of information (task, domain and task-solving information) guided the analysis of information types related to data gathering, with further analysis focusing only on task information types.FindingsMedia scholars needed the following task information types while gathering research data to create new knowledge: (1) information about research data (aboutness of data, characteristics of data, metadata and secondary information about data), (2) information about sources of research data (characteristics of sources, local media landscapes) and (3) information about cases and their contexts (case information, contextual information). All the task information types should be considered when building data services and tools to support media scholars' work.Originality/valueThe paper increases understanding of the concept of task information in the context of gathering research data to create new knowledge and thereby informs the providers of research data services about the task information types that researchers need.

Types of domain and task‐solving information in media scholars' data interaction

“…The participants were instructed to choose an ongoing or recently concluded research to be discussed in the interviews. The semi‐structured interview guide (see Korkeamäki et al, 2022, appendix) had background questions, questions about participants' research topics and processes, questions about working in a research group (if applicable), questions about participants' research data (i.e., what were the data like), and data interaction (collecting, finding, selecting, analyzing, archiving, and managing research data), as well as questions about research ethics, ownership, and licensing related to the research data. Follow‐up questions (e.g., for clarification or examples) were also asked (see Roulston, 2010, pp.…”

“…Next, in accordance with our research questions, we review the literature regarding domain information and task-solving information. Task information, being inherently different from the other two, was studied in Korkeamäki et al (2022) and is beyond the scope of this paper. Byström (1999, pp.…”

“…The first type, task information, is specific in nature in that it is needed only for the task at hand. We examined task information in our previous study (Korkeamäki et al, 2022) with a narrow focus on a specific task type, data gathering, in media scholars' knowledge creation. In this paper, we examine the two remaining information types: domain information and task‐solving information.…”