Using internet groups in situations of information poverty : topics and information needs

Hasler, Laura and Ruthven, Ian and Buchanan, Steven (2014) Using internet groups in situations of information poverty : topics and information needs. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 65 (1). pp. 25-36. ISSN 1532-2890

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    Abstract

    This study explores the use of online newsgroups and discussion groups by people in situations of information poverty. Through a qualitative content analysis of 200 posts from across Internet groups, we identify topics and information needs expressed by people who feel they have no other sources of support available to them. We uncover various health, wellbeing, social and identity issues which are not only crucial to the lives of the people posting, but which they are unwilling to risk revealing elsewhere – offering evidence that these online environments provide an outlet for the expression of needs in situations of critical and hidden information need. To enable this analysis, we first describe our method for reliably identifying situations of information poverty in messages posted to these groups and our coding approach. Our work contributes to the study of both information seeking within the context of information poverty and the use of Internet groups as sources of information and support, bridging the two by exploring the manifestation of information poverty in this particular online setting.

    Creators(s): Hasler, Laura, Ruthven, Ian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6669-5376 and Buchanan, Steven ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5944-3936;
    Item type:Article
    ID code:43133
    Keywords:internet groups, information poverty, topics, information needs, online newsgroups , discussion groups, Electronic computers. Computer science, Information resources, Artificial Intelligence, Software, Computer Networks and Communications, Information Systems, Human-Computer Interaction
    Subjects:Science > Mathematics > Electronic computers. Computer science
    Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Information resources
    Department:Faculty of Science > Computer and Information Sciences
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:05 Mar 2013 14:21
    Last modified:02 Apr 2020 01:18
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/43133
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