Section Six

6.3 Talja, S., Keso, H., & Pietilaminen, T. (1999). Information Processing and Management, 35. (751-763).

Context is best understood through the time and space situations of the person or items discussed. This is further expounded throughout the article as the authors attempt to elucidate the reader with the metatheoretical context of context. The authors summarize a vast majority of current theory of context and attempt to depict what context is. They employ Behaviorist and Social construction models to supplement their argument.

The authors paint a convoluted image of context throughout the article. They even suggest early on that "there is no term more often used, less often defined and, when defined; defined so variously, as context" (p. 752). I found that to be rather true, as I am unable to properly comprehend exactly what context is after reading this article. I read this article (along with the Dervin article) before and after class and still find my understanding of this concept to be lacking. I would hope with the amount of pages written on this subject it is more substantial than simply placing literature and people within their time-space situations that paint their understanding of the world. As of right now, that was all I was able to absorb from this article.

I have a problem with an article that uses slang terminology at the same time as being obnoxiously loquacious. Perhaps my problem with the fact that "context is hot" is found in both the abstract and the introduction lies within my own context of the word hot. As an American with an unfortunately large knowledge base of popular culture, I am aware of the fact that Paris Hilton uses the phrase "that's hot" more times that I would care to count. It is rumored that she even attempted to have the phrase copyrighted, thereby attempting to control all contexts of the execution of it. I am having a bit of cognitive dissonance, therefore, trying to take an article seriously that describes something as hot. The fact that, in my opinion, it spends pages of pages saying very little in an extremely large amount of words makes it worse.