Rethinking information practices to embrace avoidance : everything old is new again

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Bronstein, Jenny and Hicks, Alison and Hyldegård, Jette and McKenzie, Pamela and Ruthven, Ian (2025) Rethinking information practices to embrace avoidance : everything old is new again. Information Research. ISSN 1368-1613 (In Press)

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Abstract

Introduction. We respond to Hicks et al.’s (2025) call to reconceptualise information avoidance free from the assumption that avoiding information is necessarily negative, denialist, or non-compliant. This allows us to consider what people actually do with information and why they act the way they do. Method. We purposively selected cases from published literature that illustrate the interplay between what library and information science researchers have previously dichotomised as ‘seeking’ and ‘avoidance’ practices. Analysis. Through secondary analysis, we reinterpreted these exemplars using Hicks et al’s (2025) a new perspective on information avoidance as practices that moderate information. Results. We identified four complex intertwinings of information practices that moderate information flow and access through both expansion and contraction: taking control of information flow; encountering, managing, or using information on one’s own terms, at time and place of their choosing; keeping secrets: revealing or sharing information on one’s own terms, at a time and place of one’s own choosing; and protecting privacy and resisting surveillance. Conclusion. Reframing information practices allows us to understand how people may engage in deliberate, active, and effortful practices to moderate and regulate information flow and access. These practices coexist and are both expansive and contractive.

ORCID iDs

Bronstein, Jenny, Hicks, Alison, Hyldegård, Jette, McKenzie, Pamela and Ruthven, Ian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6669-5376;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)