"Social Roles as Context in Information Behavior" by Donald O. Case

Social Roles as Context in Information Behavior 

by Donald O. Case

College of Communication and Information Studies
University of Kentucky

Context is often defined as some combination of a person’s individual background, task or problem, social role, and the particular situation in which they find themselves. This lecture will focus on aspects of these variables, and what we know about their effect on information seeking.  Examples will be drawn from a variety of contexts, including that of medical patients as they interact with their caregivers and loved ones.

Speaker bio: Dr. Case has been a Professor in the University of Kentucky College of Communication and Information Studies since 1994; between 1983 and 1994 Case was a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication Research from Stanford University (1984) and an M.L.S. from Syracuse University (1977). During 1989 he received a Fulbright Fellowship to lecture at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. His research interests include information behavior, social informatics and information policy. The first edition of his book, Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior (2002) was given the "Best Book of the Year" Award by the American Society for Information Science & Technology.