Abstract

DE FREITAS ROCHA, Eliane Cristina; KREMPSER GANDRA, Tatiane  and  PEREIRA ROCHA, Janicy Aparecida. Information practices: new approach on information user studies. Biblios [online]. 2017, n.68, pp.96-109. ISSN 1562-4730.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/biblios.2017.445.

Objective. This study presents research approaches on information practices and its implications for designing studies in the field of user studies. Method. Bibliographic research on social and information practices' conceptual basis and on three research groups that use this approach - a Brazilian, a Swedish and a Finnish. Results. All research groups present information practices as those that go beyond the information behaviour studies and that try to scrutinize activities related to socially mediated contact with information (including communicative activities) and the pratices related to information on formal education, research and daily living environments, either real or digital. The European groups studied use theorethical references based on the Schatzki practice theory, while the Brazilian group prefer ethnometodological references. Conclusions. User studies based on an information practice approach must not be underpinned nor on information behaviour models neither on objective or subjective approaches. Different methodology-theoretical approaches are called upon by the information practices concept and its diverse interpretations. However, this diversity among the three groups studied shows the field's strength: the complexity of social reality and the continuous researchers' efforts to reveal different facets of information phenomena.

Keywords : Ethnomethodology; Information behavior; Information practices; Methodology; User studies.

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