Section Five

5.2 Tuominen, K., Savolainen, R. (1997). A Social Constructionist Approach to the Study of Information Use as Discursive Action.In P. Vakkari, R. Savolainen, & B. Dervin (Eds.). Proceedings of an international conference on Information seeking in context (81-96). London: Taylor Graham Publishing.

Tuominen and Savolainen begin the article from a broader perspective of social constructionism. Language is seen as more than just the vehicle through which knowledge is passed, but instead as the sphere through which knowledge is understood. Through a comprehensive discussion of the background of the theory, the authors then related it to information use. Here they suggest information is employed to serve as evidence to make the speaker sound more authoritative.

When I was younger, as I'm sure many ex-children can attest to, I questioned teachers once or twice as to why we were doing things like math. While this article may not help with math, it does allow me to have a ready-made answer in case I get questioned as to why using outside sources is important. The authors described a particular example where a mother quotes an outside source to make her opinion more authoritative. By applying the discussion surrounding this quotation, I can remind the children that outside sources make them sound more authoritative and thus, more likely to be taken seriously.

What I found interesting about this article, is that it first fully details the social constructionist perspective before applying it to the field of information behavior. This allowed me to get comfortable with the language and concepts before it was applied to human information behavoior. I am really appreciative of the authors' decision to do this, because I feel as if I have a stronger command of this concept than I would have otherwise.