Sociological-epistemological paradigm in Library & Information Science (LIS)
The socio-cognitive view is a view of human cognition that emphasizes social and cultural causes in individual thinking. It is a view that is less concerned with knowledge as something “in the head” and more with knowledge in externalized products like documents (cf., Socio-cognitive view in Epistemological lifeboat). The insight from this perspective provides a perspective on LIS that is moves the focus from abstracted individualities to socio-cultural contexts, emphasizing a social and epistemological perspective on information, information systems and users.
A central point is the claim that tools, concepts, meaning, information structures, information needs and relevance criteria are discovered by and shaped in discourse communities, for example, in scientific disciplines, which are parts of society's division of labor. A discourse community being a community in which an ordered and bounded communication process takes place. This communication is structured by a conceptual structure, by institutional enclosure, and by governance of discourse fora (see Wagner & Wittrock, 1991). This view changes the focus of IS from individuals (or computers) to the social, cultural and scientific world. One important implication is that the relevant cognitive structures are of a historical rather than of a physiological nature. In developing this view support inside psychology is found from the Cultural-Historical Approach associated with names like John Dewey, L. S. Vygotsky and A. N. Leontiev, also known as Activity Theory and the Socio-cognitive View. An up–to–date introduction to activity theory is Karpatschof (2000). In information science Jacob & Shaw (1998) provided a review of much of this research using the socio-cognitive view as a label.
Literature:
Hjørland, B. (2002). Epistemology and the Socio-Cognitive Perspective in Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(4), 257-270.
Hjørland, B. (2002). Principia Informatica. Foundational Theory of Information and Principles of Information Services. IN: Emerging Frameworks and Methods. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS4). Ed. By Harry Bruce, Raya Fidel, Peter Ingwersen, and Pertti Vakkari. Greenwood Village, Colorado, USA: Libraries Unlimited. (Pp. 109-121). Manuscript available at: http://www.db.dk/bh/Core%20Concepts%20in%20LIS/articles%20a-z/principia_informatica.htm
Jacob, E. K., & Shaw, D. (1998). Socio-cognitive perspectives on representation. IN: M. E. Williams (ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 33, pp. 131-185. Medford, NJ: Information Today for American Society for Information Science.
Karpatschof, B. (2000). Human activity. Contributions to the Anthropological Sciences from a Perspective of Activity Theory. Copenhagen: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. ISBN: 87 7706 311 2
Resnick, L. B.;
Levine, J. M. & Teasley, S. D. (Eds.). (1991). Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. Washington: American Psychological
Association.
Tolman, C. W. (Eds.). (1991). Positivism in Psychology. Historical and Contemporary Problems. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Wagner, P. & Wittrock, B. (1991). States, institutions and Discourses: A Comparative Perspective on the Structuration of the Social Sciences. IN: Wagner, P.; Wittrock, B. & Whitley, R. (Eds.). Discourses on Society. The Shaping of the Social Science Disciplines. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 331-355.
See also: Disciplines in Knowledge Organization (Lifeboat for KO); Domain Analysis; Social organization of knowledge; Socio-cognitive view (Epistemological lifeboat).
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 18-02-2006