Information through the lens: information research and the dynamics of practice

Introduction. Information researchers have been urged to move beyond the individual behaviourist paradigm to broaden our view of information activities. Increasingly information scholars suggest we treat information activities as practices, and to re-position information research within the bounds of practice theory. But what exactly is practice theory, how does it relate to information, and what does it offer to information research? Aim. This paper takes as its starting point the arguments of those who suggest an information practice approach can better identify and analyse the full range of information activities. It briefly examines the practice approach in the social sciences and identifies seven essential characteristics of practices: action-based, temporal, situated, continuous and recurrent, embodied, mediated and social. Using these characteristics as categories of activity, the researcher can develop a conceptual framework of practice which may be profitably utilised in an empirical examination of human information. Conclusion. The paper concludes that an examination of information activities in accordance with this framework of practice could allow researchers to gain a wider understanding of all that goes into a person becoming informed.