Discourse analysis: method and application in the study of information
Information Processing and Management: an International Journal
The “Conduit Metaphor ” and the nature and politics of information studies
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Ethnomethodologically informed ethnography and information system design
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Information and Communication Technologies: Visions and Realities
Information and Communication Technologies: Visions and Realities
A Mathematical Theory of Communication
A Mathematical Theory of Communication
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Positioning theory and the negotiation of information needs in a clinical midwifery setting
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology - Part I: Information seeking research
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Although technological determinism is an inadequate description of change, it remains common, if implicit, in much information science literature. Recent developments in science and technology studies offer a social constructivist alternative, in which technology is seen, not as autonomous, but as the result of interests. However, the stability of these interests can be argued to privilege social factors in the same way as technological determinism privileges technological factors. A second alternative is to shift to a relativist stance and analyze discourse as interaction, rather than as a neutral carrier of information, or communication. The focus of the discourse analyses of interview interactions presented in this article is on two aspects of discursive structure, the indexical category of research, and interest management, which refers to the ways that participants manage their own and others' stakes in particular accounts. The article concludes by noting how formal scholarly communication acts as a category entitlement in interviews, and how technological determinism works as a dilemma for this entitlement that participants (including researchers) negotiate at the very local level of their interactions and accounts.