Browsing by Subject "Information behavior"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

End-of-life decision making: information preferences and behaviors of Uchinanchu older adults
(2023-12) Shiroma, Kristina; Xie, Bo, Ph. D.; Fingerman, Karen; Lankes, R. David; Zhang, Yan
End-of-life (EOL) decisions are unique and sensitive health decisions that require nuanced health information. Careful examination of EOL decision-making preferences and behaviors from both medical and cultural information perspectives is increasingly necessary as the national and global population grows older and more diverse. While information preferences and behaviors have been examined and represented within the health science literature, there is a glaring paucity of EOL decision-making research coming from information science scholars. My dissertation research addresses this staggering gap. This qualitative study employs semi-structured interviews of 18 Uchinanchu older adults. To better understand the EOL decision making information preferences and behaviors of Uchinanchu older adults I proposed three research questions: (RQ1) What information do Uchinanchu older adults want to have when making EOL decisions?; (RQ2) From what sources do Uchinanchu older adults draw on for the medical/and or cultural information they want when making EOL decisions?; and (RQ3) What factors influence Uchinanchu older adults’ information-seeking behavior in EOL decision making? Through reflexive thematic analysis, I identified that Uchinanchu older adults are making EOL decisions in two worlds: (1) a larger, dominant world encompassing Western (U.S.) medical, legal, and cultural systems; and (2) a smaller world encompassing unique Uchinanchu culture. These two worlds became my two main themes and I use them to organize my results. Within each theme, features of information behavior (information types, information sources, and influencing factors of information behavior) are identified and discussed. Results of this dissertation research contribute to the development of an in-depth, culturally informed understanding of EOL decision-making information preferences and behaviors within the information science literature. Additionally, this work has practical implications for community health leaders and policy makers to design culturally informed programs for EOL decision making within underrepresented communities.
Essays on network dynamics and informational value of virtual communities
(2008-08) Chen, Hsuan-wei, 1980-; Giu, Bin, Ph. D.
Public press and companies have increasingly strong interests in the impact on businesses brought about by virtual communities. In recent years, virtual communities have become significant sources of information for consumers and businesses by offering unprecedented opportunities for information sharing. Scholars recognize that information posted in virtual communities has important implications for the behaviors of community members and subsequent economic decisions and market performance. However, relatively less is explored about how the informational value of virtual communities results from an aggregated or fragmented community of information. In particular, the underlying motives and mechanisms of user interactions in virtual communities are challenging to understand because of the amount of information available and the potential noises. To investigate user dynamics and the resulting informational value in virtual communities, I explore three major issues in my dissertation. First, I empirically examine whether community fragmentation or aggregation prevails in the context of virtual investment communities. Results indicate that instead of the common belief of virtual communities serving as melting pots that comprise opinions, online investors, in particular, show strong homophily behavior in virtual investment communities. Second, using data from virtual investment communities, I investigate the interactions among online investors that drive homophily and community fragmentation. I find that psychological needs for supportive opinions mainly drive the information seeking and interaction behaviors of online investors as compared to economic rationales. Following this line of exploration, I also identify the informational impact of virtual communities on user behaviors in the context of electronic markets. With data from online retailers, I examine the possible shrinkage of consumer product consideration that is reinforced by online recommendations. A resultant change of consumer consideration leads to a landscape shift of product competition for online retailers, suggesting strategic implications to manufacturers. All in all, my dissertation contributes to an understanding of the value of virtual communities as informational media, how virtual communities shape online user opinions, and how online user preferences impact businesses and markets in a networked economy. My research pushes the frontier toward understanding virtual communities and sheds light on the insights into exploring online network dynamics.
Everyday shopping : an exploration of the information behaviors of grocery shoppers
(2016-05) Ocepek, Melissa G.; Aspray, William; Feinberg, Melanie; Reynolds, Ann; Trace, Ciaran; Westbrook, Lynn
The field of everyday information behavior addresses how individuals interact with information in their everyday life. Previous research in the field has largely ignored the banal and quotidian portion of everyday life that scholars of the critical and cultural theory of the everyday emphasize. This dissertation seeks to enhance the scholarly knowledge of everyday information behavior by demonstrating that critical and cultural theory offers concepts and theories that enable the field to more thoroughly explore the everyday. Through two empirical studies using qualitative methods inspired by institutional ethnography, this dissertation shows how everyday information scholars can investigate the mundane everyday activity of grocery shopping to gain a deeper understanding of the information behaviors involved. The first empirical study addresses the nurturer persona, a concept based on the role of the food provider. The second empirical study addresses the creative persona, a concept based on the creativity a recreational grocery shopper can enact in the grocery store. The data from the empirical studies is analyzed using three different perspectives (grocery shopping perspective, information behavior perspective, and critical and cultural theory perspective) drawn from distinct but related research literatures to highlight the complexity of grocery shoppers’ information behavior. The findings from the grocery shopping perspective show a strong presence of the nurturer and creative personas that impact a grocery shoppers’ experience in the grocery store. The findings from the information behavior perspective show the process of grocery shopping as information-rich and consisting of many different information behaviors. They also show how aspects of the nurturer and creative personas influence the information behaviors of grocery shopping. Finally, the findings from the critical and cultural theory perspective show that grocery shopping engages in an intensive and active way in ‘everyday’ information behavior. This finding is demonstrated through concepts developed by combining critical and cultural theory with concepts and concerns from everyday information behavior research.
Human values and scientific controversies : studying vaccine information behavior on social networking sites
(2020-05-15) Koltai, Kolina Sun; Fleischmann, Kenneth R.; Zhang, Yan; Acker, Amelia; Meyer, Eric T; Stroud, Natalie J
Although vaccines are supported by decades of research demonstrating their efficacy and safety, many parents still decide not to vaccinate their children due to the perceived risks. One major factor in vaccine dissent is the proliferation of vaccine opposed content online. Online content has become an integral part of how people make health- and science-related decisions and unfortunately the traditional approach of providing pro-vaccine information is insufficient to ensure universal vaccine uptake. There is a gap in understanding the vaccine decision-making process. This dissertation explores the relationships among human values, vaccine attitudes, and use of social networking sites, specifically Facebook. Using a mixed-method design, this study sought to identify the values of vaccine opposed/hesitant Facebook users, how they use Facebook as an information and community tool, and the relationships among values, vaccine attitudes, and information behavior on Facebook. Using surveys, interviews, and thematic analysis of Facebook posts shared in vaccine opposed groups, this study was able to identify salient values among vaccine opposed/hesitant Facebook users. This study also explores information seeking and sharing behaviors on Facebook and how Facebook’s platform changes are affecting the vaccine opposed movement. Findings from this study will provide further insights into the relationships among social media use, values, and trust in the vaccine debate. In addition, results may be applicable to other scientific controversies, to online misinformation in general, and the development of public health interventions to promote the use of vaccines and other evidence-based prophylactics and therapeutics.
Patient expertise & self-management
(2023-04-21) Tomasky, Stephanie I.; Zhang, Yan (Ph. D. in information and library science); Dillon, Andrew
Patient expertise and self-management are terms that have been co-popularized through the success of the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program and Expert Patient Program. This review looks at the intersection of literature that focuses on both patient expertise and self-management. These concepts are not well-defined and the treatment of each of these terms in the literature is diverse and occasionally contradictory, but patient expertise is generally regarded as some form of useful health knowledge and self-management can be understood as a set of behaviors including recognizing, treating, and preventing symptoms of illness. The relationship between these concepts is not established in the literature, so this review poses six potential relationship dynamics based on how they are interrelated within the literature set. Much of the research agrees that patients should be empowered, active, and informed, and these are the goals of operationalizing patient expertise and self-management. However, barriers to these goals include negative provider attitudes, extensive labor burden, and information relevance. In addition to these barriers to achieving the stated goals of this research, the corpus also exhibits significant limitations and gaps including diagnostic specificity, institutionalized verification, assumption of diagnostic onset, and disregarding disability. These limitations inhibit the utility of the research and the gaps call for further research to enhance academic understanding of this topic area.