Information behaviour: an interdisciplinary perspective
Information Processing and Management: an International Journal
A social constructionist approach to the study of information use as discursive action
ISIC '96 Proceedings of an international conference on Information seeking in context
Information technology and interests in scholarly communication: a discourse analysis
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
The instrumentality of information needs and relevance
CoLIS'05 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Context: conceptions of Library and Information Sciences
Confessional methods and everyday life information seeking
Annual Review of Information Science and Technology
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
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Studies of everyday life information seeking have begun to attend to incidental forms of information behavior, and this more inclusive understanding of information seeking within broader social practices invites a constructionist analytical paradigm. Positioning theory is a constructionist framework that has proven useful for studying the ways in which interactional practices contribute to information seeking. Positions can construct individuals or groups of people in ways that have real effects on their information seeking. This article identifies some specific types of discursive positioning and shows how participants in a clinical care setting position themselves and one another in ways that justify different forms of information seeking and giving. Examples are drawn from an ongoing study of information seeking in prenatal midwifery encounters. The data consist of audio recordings of nine prenatal midwifery visits and of 18 follow-up interviews, one with each participating midwife and pregnant woman. The midwifery model of care is based on a relationship in which the midwife provides the pregnant woman with information and support necessary for making informed decisions about her care. Midwife-client interactions are therefore an ideal context for studying information seeking and giving in a clinical encounter.