Research on information behavior in communities: a scoping review of community types, featured information behavior and research methods
| Date | 18 June 2024 |
| Pages | 1396-1418 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2023-0222 |
| Published date | 18 June 2024 |
| 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 | Jia Tina Du,Qing Ke,Clara M. Chu,Helen Partridge,Dandan Ma |
Research on information behavior
in communities: a scoping review of
community types, featured
information behavior and
research methods
Jia Tina Du
School of Information and Communication Studies,
Charles Sturt University –Bathurst Campus, Bathurst, Australia and
UniSA STEM, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus,
Adelaide, Australia
Qing Ke
Department of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Clara M. Chu
Mortenson Center for International Library Programs,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA
Helen Partridge
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and
Dandan Ma
Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose –This scoping review article examined research on information behavior in communities over the
past two decades (2000–2023). The review aims to uncover the characteristics and types of communities
studied, the featured information behaviors, and the research methods employed.
Design/methodology/approach–The PRISMA-ScR guidelines were followed to conduct this review. Five
databases were selected to search for relevant empirical research. A total of 57 studies met the inclusion
criteria for review. Thematic synthesis was used to analyze the multidimensional findings of included
studies.
Findings –A steady increase in the number of articles is evident in the past two decades. The review
suggests that information behavior in community studies involved collaboration from other disciplines,
such as public health and business management. More than half of the communities studied are virtual
communities (56.1%), followed by communities of identity, professional communities and support
communities, communities of interest, geographic communities, and academic communities. There are
overlaps among these categories. Information sharing (63.2%) and information seeking (57.9%) were the
most studied behavior of communities, followed by information use, information needs, and information
judgment. Questionnaires (38.6%) and interviews (35.1%) were the most commonly used data collection
techniques in studying information behavior in communities. It is noteworthy that eleven (19.3%)
mentioned utilizing community-engaged approaches.
Originality/value –This is the first scoping review to explore the intersecting constructs of community
research and information behavior studies. We call for further research to understand the contextual factors
JD
80,6
1396
We would like to thank our student research assistants, Ellen Lehmann, Hongtao Zhu and Shiwei Jia, for
their valuable efforts in literature search, screening and preliminary data extraction and analysis. Ellen
Lehmann was supported by the University of South Australia’s Vacation Research Scholarship for her
work on this study.
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 29 October 2023
Revised 13 April 2024
Accepted 7 May 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1396-1418
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-10-2023-0222
that shape the community’s information environments and to increase awareness of the partnership between
communities and researchers.
Keywords Information behavior, Community information behavior, Community research,
Community engagement, Scoping review
Paper type Review
Introduction
A scoping review offers a summary of research activity around a given topic by collecting,
mapping, and synthesizing the literature gathered (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005;Peters et al.,
2015). It allows a comparison between studies and an investigation into the consensus
amongst findings and provides considerations for future research. The review reported in
this paper has surveyed studies on information behavior in various communities. Two key
concepts guiding this review work are information behavior and community research.
We took an inclusive approach to “information behavior”studies, which refer to scholarship
concerning the production and circulation of information, information seeking, sharing,
assessment and use, information needs and sources, information practices, and use of
information and communication technologies (Case and Given, 2016;Veinot et al., 2013;
Wilson, 2016). The working definition of “community research”is based on research subjects
and approaches defined in Du and Chu (2022): taking the community as the central unit of
inquiry and analysis, and/or referring to engagement and collaboration between researchers
and communities in the research process. The identity of community refers to groups of
individuals being connected by sense of belonging, shared responsibility and commonality,
such as geographic proximity, special interest, sociodemographic and cultural status, or
shared situations and experiences (Du and Chu, 2022). Research on information behavior in
communities emphasizes the investigation of communities’information related behavior and
may involve the collaboration between researchers and community members, in which
knowledge is generated to understa nd community information behavior and/or for
community purposes, which may benefit researchers, communities, and/or society.
The information behavior literature has studied a range of communities such as
geographic communities (Carroll and Rosson, 2007), virtual communities (Yu et al., 2010),
transnational communities (Srinivasan and Pyati, 2007), interest-based communities (Hill and
Pecoskie, 2017), and marginalized communities (Veinot et al., 2011;Du et al., 2020).
Community-level information behavior research accounts fo r the social contexts of
information acquisition and use, as well as the impact of the community where individuals
belong and interact, including the positionality of these individuals, as members of a
community, in connection to the broader community structure (Du and Chu, 2022;Veinot
et al., 2013;Tang et al., 2021). Despite scattered empirical studies on the topic, few review
articles address information behavior research in communities. Rolls et al. (2016) conducted
an integrative review on the use of social media by healthcare professionals in developing
virtual communities, which were considered as valuable knowledge portals for them to
source clinically relevant and quality information to make informed practice decisions.
Among many systematic or scoping reviews on information behavior, some addressed
specific topics,such as a review on information behavior research in assigned learning tasks
(Tanniand Sormunen, 2008), informationbehavior during the COVID-19health crisis (Montesi,
2021), and informationbehavior in relation to electronic-government services(Hertzum, 2022);
while others focused on certain populations, such as information seeking behaviors of people
with dementia and their caregivers (Soong et al.,2020), university students with visual
impairments(Mutula and Majinge,2016), health informationseeking by LGBTQ þindividuals
(Jia et al.,2022) and older adults (Zhao et al.,2022). There are also reviews reporting on
informationbehavior researchtrends and approaches in general(e.g. Julien et al., 2011;Vakkari,
Journal of
Documentation
1397
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