Hartmut B. Mokros

Practice and personhood in professional interaction : social identities and information needs

This article reports two studies of “intermediary” conduct in naturally occurring online computer search interactions. The first study examines assumptions about professional practice and relational control as these are manifest in the “opening moves” produced by four intermediaries in interaction with two “users” each. The second study seeks to verify individual differences identified in the analyses reported in the first study. Specifically, the distribution of three pronouns “I,” “you,” and “we,” produced by intermediaries in their interaction with users was compared within and across intermediaries through log-linear analysis. Lack of significant within-intermediary variability indicates that the proportional distribution of the three pronouns sampled did not differ between the two interactions. Significant between-intermediary variability in pronoun distribution was, however, observed. The specific patterns of results gained through this quantitative study were consistent with those achieved interpretively in study one. Finally, the results of these studies are discussed within a proposed theoretic framework developed from the perspective of a constitntive theory of communication.

Phenomenology and Epidemiology of Mood Disorders in Children and Adolescents

Until recently, researchers lacked standardized assessment instruments and formal criteria to use in making a mood disorder diagnosis in children and adolescents. These two methodological developments have been fundamental to making mood disorders in youth, particularly depression in childhood, one of the most active areas of research within child psychiatry (Mokros & Poznanski, 1992). Indeed, many review articles and several books devoted exclusively to childhood depression have now been published (e. g., Schulterbrand & Raskin, 1977; Cantwell & Carlson, 1983; Petti, 1983; Weller & Weller, 1984; Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen, 1984; Rutter, Izard, & Read, 1986; Shafii & Shafii, 1992).

Willingness to pay and experienced utility as measures of affective value of information objects: Users' accounts

The article discusses two instant measures of affective value of information objects: Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) and Experienced Utility (EU). The potential utility of these measures for information retrieval research is positioned within a broader discussion of distinctions between instant utility and remembered utility and their relationship to immediate as opposed to retrospective subjective evaluations. The paper describes an approach for obtaining instant WTP and EU ratings in document evaluation in contexts of information search and thereafter reports results from a usability study of its implementation. Participants encountered no difficulties in use of the design format and in rating documents using WTP and EU measures. Although two measures were found statistically significantly correlated with each other, participants in the usability study offered different reasons for the ratings of WTP and EU made for the same document.

Understanding the Communication-Information Relationship Levels of Information and Contexts of Availabilities

This article explores the communication-information relationship from a system-theoretic perspective. Two basic systems principles and six propositions are presented to provide the foundation for a consideration of this relationship. The authors propose three distinct, yet mutually defining conceptions of information: Informatione, environmental information that has potential but has not yet achieved actualized significance for a living system; Information, internal appropriations and representations of environmental and cultural information transformed and configured for use by a living system; and Informations, socially and culturally created, negotiated, validated and sanctioned appropriations, representations, and artifacts. Within human systems Information, is of central concern for understanding the linkage between communication and information. However, an understanding of Information, may only be conceptualized in terms of a triadic and mutually defining relationship among the three levels of information identified. The article discusses how information identified at one level moves or is motivated to another for use by the organism. Examination of the movement of information between levels reveals the inherent communicative properties of information in use.

Communication-Information Relationship in Self-Representation Suicide Notes andAcademic Research Narratives

This article compares two examples of how information is privileged and then used by individuals to build representations of themselves and their lives. The aim is to explore the utility of an analytic vocabulary to describe this privileging process. In the first example, an adolescents construction of a suicide note shows how individuals, in the hours before they take their own lives, may choose certain types of information and thereby construct self-representations for significant others. The other example focuses on a scientists research narrative showing how researchers consciously construct descriptions to communicate the value and necessity of their work to peers or to larger audiences.