Domain analytic paradigm: a quarter century exploration of fundamental ideas in information science
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2020-0219 |
| Published date | 09 December 2021 |
| Date | 09 December 2021 |
| Pages | 1027-1052 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Lin Wang,Junping Qiu |
Domain analytic paradigm:
a quarter century exploration of
fundamental ideas in
information science
Lin Wang and Junping Qiu
Chinese Academy of Science and Education Evaluation, Hangzhou Dianzi University,
Hangzhou, China
Abstract
Purpose –The conditions that domain analysis becomes an academic school of information science (IS) are
mature. Domain analysis is one of the most importantfoundations of IS. The purpose of this paper is to analyze
and discuss metatheoretical and theoretical issues in the domain analytic paradigm in IS.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper conducts a systematic review of representative publications
of domain analysis. The analysis considered degree theses, journal articles, book chapters, conference papers
and other materials.
Findings –Domain analysis maintains that community is the new focus of IS research. Although domain
analysis centers on the domain and community, theoreticalconcerns on the social and individual dimensions of
IS are inherent in it by its using sociology as its important approach and socio-cognitive viewpoint. For these
reasons domain analysis can integrate social–community–individual levels of IS discipline as a whole. The role
of subject knowledge in IS is discussed from the perspective of domain analysis. Realistic pragmatism that
forms the philosophical foundation of domain analysis is argued and the implicationsof these theories to IS are
presented.
Originality/value –The intellectual evolving landscape of domain analysis during a quarter century is
comprehensively reviewed. Over the past twenty-five years, domain analysis has established its academic
status in the international IS circle. Being an important metatheory, paradigm and methodology, domain
analysis becomes the theoretical foundation of IS research. This paper assesses the current state of domain
analysis and shows the contributions of domain analysis to IS. It also aims to inspire further exploration.
Keywords Information science, Domain analysis, Paradigm, Philosophy, Knowledge organization
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
Information science (IS) is a multi-metatheoretical, multi-paradigmatic discipline. Since 1980s,
the development of paradigm research has witnessed the progress and prosperity of the
foundation of IS (Belkin, 1990;Miksa, 1992;Ellis, 1992;Bates, 2005;Hartel, 2019). The
institutional paradigm, information movement paradigm, physical paradigm and cognitive
paradigm, etc. compete in IS. Among paradigm competition, the domain analytic paradigm
emerged as a new force in 1995 and matured in a relatively short period. The domain analytic
paradigm states:
The best way to understand information in IS is to study the knowledge-domains as “discourse
communities”, which are parts of the society’s division of labor. Knowledge organization, -structure,
Domain analytic
paradigm in
information
science
1027
The authors express our thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive
comments. This paper is an achievement of projects of Chinese National Social Science Key Funding
“Big Data-Driven Cloud Platform Construction and Intelligent Service of Science and Education
Evaluation”(Project Number: 19ZDA348) and Chinese National Social Science Key Funding “Chinese
Information Poor People’s Health Anxiety and Psychological Dredging under Healthy China Strategy”
(Project Number: 21ATQ005).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 27 December 2020
Revised 2 September 2021
16 November 2021
Accepted 23 November 2021
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 78 No. 5, 2022
pp. 1027-1052
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-12-2020-0219
cooperation patterns, language and communication forms, information systems and relevance
criteria are reflections of the objects of the work of these communities and of their role in society. The
individual person’s psychology, knowledge, information needs, and subjective relevance criteria
should be seen in this perspective. (Hjørland and Albrechtsen, 1995)
Since the domain analysis was put forward, there has been an increasing interest in the
various aspects of this new thought, including its concept definitions, metatheories and
philosophies, methodologies and methods, and application scopes, etc. The past quarter
century has seen the rapid development of domain analysis research in many subfields of IS
(Hjørland, 1997,1998a;2010a,2015b). Especially in the knowledge organization (KO) field,
Smiraglia, Guimaraes, Lopez-Huertas, Mai, and Tennis have systematically investigated the
value and implications of domain analysis for KO and contributed to a deeper understanding
of domain analysis (Smiraglia, 2000,2006,2012,2014,2015a,b;Guimar~
aes and Tognoli, 2015;
L
opez-Huertas, 2006,2015;Mai, 2005,2011;Tennis, 2003,2012). Under these scholars’efforts,
the domain analytic paradigm is advanced to a large degree. The theory growth and
paradigm development of domain analysis are not straightforward but accompanied with
controversies and debates, sometimes even fierce (Salton, 1996;Beghtol, 2004;Feinberg, 2007;
Szostak, 2008;Nicolaisen, 2017; just to name a few). This is uncommon in the intellectual
history of IS. It may be just because of these debates that domain analysis advocates can
improve its metatheory and theory and develop a coherent theory system. From the
perspective of the philosophy of science, controversy and debates are valuable tools in
scientific progress. Debates about domain analytic paradigm intentionally or unintentionally
facilitate the theorizing process of domain analysis, from being an idea to comprehensive
metatheory, paradigm and theory. Domain analysis withstands the test of time, addresses
challenges and gains more and more supports during debates in academia. Domain analytic
paradigm is acknowledged by IS academia. Domain analysis has become the chapter of some
classical textbooks (Bawden and Robinson, 2012). There is the entry of domain analysis in the
two editions of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Two special issues of the
journal Knowledge Organization (2003 and 2015, respectively) were devoted to domain
analysis. A new special issue of Brazilian Journal of Information Science edited by Wolfram
et al. (2021) is calling for papers on the topic of “Domain analysis: challenges and
perspectives”.Vickery (2004) held the view that domain analysis research has revealed some
regularities about the characteristics of documentary information. Based on a comprehensive
review of the knowledge organization literature, Smiraglia (2015) maintained that domain
analysis had been adopted as a methodological paradigm for KO community to discover the
ontological foundation and evolutionary dynamics of scholarly communities. We suppose
that without such debates, the way of becoming one of the mainstream paradigms in IS may
be more time-consuming. Some scholars follow this paradigm and enrich it. Ørom (2003) is a
good exemplar of studying knowledge organization in the art research field from the
perspective of the domain analytic paradigm. Robinson (2009) puts forward a conceptual
model of IS that puts domain analysis at the center. It consists of a six-component information
chain, investigated by eleven approaches of domain analysis. The work of this paper is as
follows: Based on the literature review, we firstly interpret domain analysis as a community
epistemology, which underpins the foundation of IS. Then we illustrate the potential of
domain analysis as a bridge to unified IS. Finally, the philosophical basis of domain analysis
is discussed.
2. Domain analysis as community epistemology
Domain analysis has a strong flavor of philosophical argument, which is one of its main
characteristics. We consider domain analysis as community epistemology and believe it
should become the theoretical basis of IS.
JD
78,5
1028
To continue reading
Request your trial