Brenda Dervin

Sense‐making theory and practice: an overview of user interests in knowledge seeking and use

The Sense‐making approach to studying and understanding users and designing systems to serve their needs is reviewed. The approach, developed to focus on user sense making and sense unmaking in the fields of communication and library and information science, is reviewed in terms of its implications for knowledge management. Primary emphasis is placed on moving conceptualizations of users, information and reality from the noun‐based knowledge‐as‐map frameworks of the past to verb‐based frameworks emphasizing diversity, complexity and sense‐making potentials. Knowledge management is described as a field on the precipice of chaos, reaching for a means of emphasizing diversity, complexity and people over centrality, simplicity and technology. Sense making, as an approach, is described as a methodology disciplining the cacophony of diversity and complexity without homogenizing it. Knowledge is reconceptualized from noun to verb.

On studying information seeking methodologically: the implications of connecting metatheory to method

Abstract Theory constructs its evidence, and values and faith construct what constitute theory. [Maines, D. R. & Molseed, M. J. (1986). The obsessive discoverers complex and the ‘discovery’ of growth in sociological theory. American Journal of Sociology , 92(1), 158–163.] To admit that knowledge is intrinsically erroneous is not to imply that we should forego it. [McGuire, W. J. (1986). A perspectivist looks at contextualism and the future of behavioral science. In R. L. Rosnow & M. Georgoudi (Eds.), Contextualism and understanding in behavioral science: implications for research and theory. New York: Praeger, 271–301.] It is not enough for theory to describe and analyze, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this theory must… tear itself from all referents and take pride in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality. [Baudrillard, J. (1988). The ecstasy of communication. New York: Semiotext(e).] The purpose I have mandated for this article is to explore the implications of articulating the bridges that are built, usually implicitly, between metatheory and method, and between these and their ultimate interests, the doing of research. The purpose is to articulate the uses of methodology. To chart this as a mandate is to assume, in contradiction to extant wisdom, that: (1) the journey has not yet been fully mapped; and (2) in fact there are multiple and everchanging ways of bridging these gaps with no one agreed upon single set of criteria by which the results can be evaluated. Above these assumptions is a higher level assumption that impels this journey -- that taking an explicitly and self-consciously methodological approach is necessary to the improvement of the enterprise of systematic study. It is the primary purpose of this paper to illustrate by example the statements made above. The argument supporting the statements can be found elsewhere (A longer version of this paper is available which includes arguments regarding inattentions to methodology and a bibliography which includes authors writing on the issue. Readers who wish a copy may contact dervin.1@osu.edu). Suffice it to say here that the statements above rest on the assumption that in the midst of the paradigm battles which mark todays study of humans and their conditions, methodology as a term is highly contested, much abused, and frequently ignored. It is referred to either as method, or as metatheorical critique of the constructing of theory. It is, thus, either collapsed into method or collapsed into metatheory and in either locale it disappears. Rarely, however, is methodology attended to as that branch of metatheory which involves the reflexive analysis and development of methods -- with methods defined broadly as methods of theorizing, observing, data collecting, analyzing, and interpreting. The result is that we lack a vocabulary for talking about methodology, a vocabulary which attends to the philosophic mandate in the term, the way in which it might build a bridge between metatheoy and method, and, thus, make more obvious the impacts of these on research and its theory-constructings.

Information ↔ democracy: an examination of underlying assumptions

This article assumes a widely accepted narrative, with myth-like status, which binds together dominant conceptions of the information ↔ democracy relationship. The article aims to “deconstruct” this narrative by examining it in the framework of six sets of assumptions regarding ontology (views of the nature of reality and human beings) and epistemology (views of the nature of knowing and the standards of judging knowing as informative). The six sets of assumptions are presented as stereotypes, or ideal type extractions, of literatures relevant to discussions of information in the sciences and humanities. The six sets are labeled: dogma, naturalism, cultural relativity, constructivism, post-modernism, and communitarianism. Each set is examined in terms of how it serves the information ↔ democracy narrative and how it leaves spaces for power to exert forces which in effect defy the narrative. Implications for the design and implementation of information/communication systems are discussed.

Sense-making in feminist social science research: A call to enlarge the methodological options of feminist studies

Abstract This essay explores the ways in which feminist scholars have conceived their studies in order to conduct research that is for the emancipation of women and a more egalitarian society. In aspiring to the ideals of feminist theory, many researchers in the social sciences as well as the humanities have developed elaborate collaborative research projects that combine a variety of methods and approaches. Critiques of these methodologies are beginning to emerge from within the field of feminist research. Some claim that highly collaborative participatory research should not be seen as the absolute model for all feminist empirical studies. There are those situations that warrant the development of alternative approaches. This analysis suggests that Dervins sense-making methodology is the type of research approach that could offer feminist scholarship methods that are true to the ideals of feminist perspectives, but at the same time avoids some of the traps of research that demand collaboration and on overemphasis on intersubjectivity.

The Human Side of Information: An Exploration in a Health Communication Context

This paper starts by contrasting two sets of assumptions about the nature of information transfer in any professional interaction. The assumptions focus on whether it is more useful practically and...

Comparing situated sense-making processes in virtual worlds: Application of Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology to media reception situations

What happens when a person engages with a virtual world? Are there unique processes of engagings that occur? One approach to understanding how a person makes sense of a virtual world is to compare the engaging processes with other media technologies, focusing on situated performative and interpretive sense-makings. This article reports on a study conducted to compare how novices make sense of four media technologies: film, console videogames, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, and social virtual worlds. Using Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) and our conceptualization of media reception situations, we extracted five potential overlapping sense-making concepts to make comparisons that do not presume a priori the influences of characteristics of technologies and other structures. The five comparative concepts all focus on situated sense-making processes. Our purpose in this article is not to present a full study report but rather to illustrate the methodological approach used in the data collection/production and analysis of the study. Results of our analyses indicate the complexity of media reception situations, how they converged and diverged, and how they involve multiple potential influences on media reception outcomes.

Comparing Arts and Popular Culture Experiences: Applying a Common Methodological Framework

n an effort to increase their audiences, legitimacy, and support bases, arts institutions are increasingly emulating purveyors of popular culture by using sophisticated marketing techniques and blockbuster programming. Two arguments have emerged in response to this trend. One argument suggests that if the arts have something unique and vital to offer, a notion suggested by their nonprofit status and their orientation as a public good, then it is important not only to the arts community but also to society as a whole that this trend be reversed so that the unique qualities of the arts are retained and made available to the whole of society. On the other hand, some argue that no real qualitative differences exist between the arts and popular culture and that the arts should therefore fight for their survival in the marketplace, along with popular culture products and institutions. The need to discuss both the arts and popular culture in the same framework has become apparent, especially in the cultural policy arena. Not only is there evidence of an ongoing blurring of the boundaries between the arts and popular culture—due, for example, to the borrowing of images and ideas,1 the crossover of audiences,2 and the widespread use of technology3— but there is also increasing discussion among cultural policy leaders of a need for the conceptualization of a broadly cast economic “arts sector” that

Designing for knowledge worker informings: An exemplar application of sense‐making methodology

Designing approaches to support knowledge intensive work has been documented to be critical and costly. Research has shown that knowledge workers frequently evaluate KM efforts as missing the mark. They are too often left without the help they need for constructing knowledge-based solutions. Knowledge workers point to failures not so much in retrieving topically-perfect-information but rather to communication gaps, such as systems that do not address work demands and informing needs in complex, changing, and sometimes elusive situations. This research used an interviewing approach informed by Dervins Sense-Making Methodology. The aim was to allow digging deeply to understand hidden depths of informing practices that rarely have come to light in user studies. The ultimate aim is to design systems that support knowledge creation anchored to knowledge worker informing practices and to the situationality of these practices. The purpose of this paper is to present an exemplar study focusing on the challenges of doing user research in such a way that it usefully informs the design of knowledge management systems intended for use in knowledge-intensive work in the for-profit context. Sense-Making Methodology is presented as an alternative and more powerful approach to studying knowledge creation work.

From the dialogic to the contemplative: a conceptual and empirical rethinking of online communication outcomes as verbing micro-practices

Traditional approaches to studying communication in public spheres draw upon a product or outcome orientation that has prevented researchers from theorizing more specifically about how communication behaviors either inhibit or facilitate dialogic processes. Additionally, researchers typically emphasize consensus as a preferred outcome. Drawing upon a methodology explicitly developed to study communicating using a verb-oriented framework, we analyzed 1,360 postings from online pedagogical discussions. Our analysis focused on verbing micro-practices, the dynamic communicative actions through which participants make and unmake public spheres. Two questions guided our analysis: (1) How do grounded communicative micro-moment practices relate to consensusing and dissensusing within public spheres? and (2) What are the theoretical implications of these relationships for the quality of dialogue among participants who are discussing controversial topics? Our findings indicate that, contrary to recent theorizing, consensus-building and maintaining behaviors may actually inhibit the communicative processes necessary for the creation of effective public sphere dialogue.

Standing in Two Worlds Looking at an Art Exhibition: Sense-Making in the Millennial Generation

Reported is a study that focused on the Millennial Generation and potential differences in viewing an exhibition in person versus online. The exhibition featured the artwork of Paul-Henri Bourguignon, whose extensive body of work includes a variety of paintings and drawings that employ a wide range of styles. Some viewers traveled to the physical space of a museum gallery, while others viewed reproductions of the same works on the Internet. Informants engaged in reflexive self-interviews using Dervins Sense-Making Methodology. The authors compare viewers’ responses to works experienced in person versus online and discuss implications.