Information Worlds and Interpretive Practices: Toward an Integration of Domains

Abstract

This article proposes an interwoven three-part framework for conceptualizing and analyzing the role of information in human activities, melding the cognitive and affective domain of the individual, the collective domain of the social, and the domain of signification and communication practices, focusing on the ways in which individual characteristics, social context and interaction, and signification and representation work together to form information behavior. The article presents an overview of each of these three domains and discusses the ways in which they are intertwined. It argues that considering the three domains in relation to each other offers a holistic framework within which to consider the ways in which information – needs, behavior, creation, and use – depends simultaneously on all three. It concludes by offering a brief discussion of the implications of the framework for information services, including (but not limited to) libraries.