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Legal information acquisition by the public: The role of personal and environmental factors

Authors:
  • Simmons University

Abstract

This paper reports a portion of the results of a 2016 mixed methods study on the acquisition of legal information by members of the public. While information acquisition by health information seekers has been extensively studied, similar studies of legal consumers are almost nonexistent. Even less research has focused on incidental encounters with legal information. Based upon established models of human information behavior, and informed by numerous studies of health information acquisition by consumers, this study examined the relationship of personal, contextual, affective and environmental factors with frequency of legal information acquisition. In one phase of the study, an online survey was administered to 385 adults without formal legal training. Reported frequency of legal information searching and incidental encountering (IE) of legal information were assessed for significant relationships with personal characteristics and environmental factors. Age, income and previous experience with the legal system were associated with greater legal search frequency. Age, race and previous experience with the legal system were associated with greater frequency of legal IE. Exposure to multiple information sources and multiple mass media sources were associated with greater frequency of both legal search and IE. The study was exploratory in nature, but it serves as a first step in assessing civil legal information acquisition by American adults without specialized legal training. It also explicitly ties legal consciousness, and legal access, to information acquisition practices.
1
Legal Information Acquisition by the Public: The Role of
Personal and Environmental Factors
Sheila O’Hare
Emporia State University
School of Library & Information Management
sohare1@emporia.edu
Sanda Erdelez
University of Missouri
School of Information Science & Learning
Technologies
erdelezs@missouri.edu
ABSTRACT
This paper reports a portion of the results of a 2016 mixed
methods study on the acquisition of legal information by
members of the public. While information acquisition by
health information seekers has been extensively studied,
similar studies of legal consumers are almost nonexistent.
Even less research has focused on incidental encounters
with legal information. Based upon established models of
human information behavior, and informed by numerous
studies of health information acquisition by consumers, this
study examined the relationship of personal, contextual,
affective, and environmental factors with frequency of legal
information acquisition. In one phase of the study, an
online survey was administered to 385 adults without
formal legal training. Reported frequency of legal
information searching and incidental encountering (IE) of
legal information were assessed for significant relationships
with personal characteristics and environmental factors.
Age, income, and previous experience with the legal system
were associated with greater legal search frequency. Age,
race, and previous experience with the legal system were
associated with greater frequency of legal IE. Exposure to
multiple information sources and multiple mass media
sources were associated with greater frequency of both
legal search and IE. The study was exploratory in nature,
but it serves as a first step in assessing civil legal
information acquisition by American adults without
specialized legal training. It also explicitly ties legal
consciousness, and legal access, to information acquisition
practices.
Keywords
Legal information, legal consciousness, information
seeking, information searching, information encountering.
INTRODUCTION
“American society is filled with signs of legal culture,”
declared Ewick and Silbey (1998) in their study of
differential voluntary use of the legal system entitled The
Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life.
Labels, copyrights, trademarks, limitations of liabilities,
warranties, and other manifestations of the law are
ubiquitous. However, in spite of their embeddedness in a
law-saturated environment, studies reveal that Americans
display a number of inconsistencies in their understandings
of legal concepts and actions. Ewick and Silbey, who
explored the subject through interviews with 430 people in
four New Jersey counties, noted that law was experienced
as irrelevant and significant, episodic and constant. A
single coherent concept of “law” did not seem to exist. The
authors, however, did not see these contradictions as a
negative; rather, law in people’s lives was a process, “an
emergent feature of social relations” (p. 17), working itself
out in varied and often ambiguous ways.
Ewick and Silbey situated their study within the scope of
studies of “legal consciousness,” or how legality is
understood and experienced by ordinary citizens as they
interact, avoid, or refuse to interact with legal meanings and
processes. The concept has its roots in “rights
consciousness” (Sarat, 1977): how individuals see
themselves as possessing either general or specific claims
that could be asserted through public authority. Sarat,
among others, cautioned that assessing legal consciousness
presents difficulties. Its character is often situational, and it
tends to function as an unexamined apparatus. As Nielsen
(2000) concluded, “legal consciousness also refers to how
people do not think about the law; that is to say, it is the
body of assumptions people have about the law that are
simply taken for granted” (p. 1059).
As a result of this difficulty, most studies of legal
consciousness have been qualitative (see, e.g., Harding,
2006; Berrey, Hoffman et al., 2010); a few combine
qualitative research with preexisting quantitative data (see
Blackstone, Uggen et al., 2009, using data from the
longitudinal Youth Development Survey in St. Paul,
Minnesota). More recently, access to justice research in the
has gathered descriptive data, particularly through state
reports (see summary table in Hadfield and Heine, 2015)
related to outcomes of cases brought by represented versus
unrepresented litigants. The twain has yet to meet, and this
is problematic (see, e.g., Leitch, 2013).
ASIST 2017, Washington, DC | Oct. 27-Nov 1, 2017
Authors Retain Copyright.
Scholars of legal consciousness do not address “legal
information” per se as a concept, nor do they focus on
acquisition of information in the development of legal
consciousness or decision-making. (In fact, the growth in
studies of information seeking by the public coincided with
a decline in the influence of critical legal theory and legal
consciousness.) Quantitative studies in access to justice, on
the other hand, are focused on the role of the formal legal
system and its availability to citizens. This is linked to
information seeking, but it is narrowly focused (on, for
example, legal aid turn-aways) (see, e.g., Rhode, 2004;
Lobel and Chapman, 2015). Recently, Chambliss, Knake
and Nelson (2016) opined that “currently…we know little
about the legal resource landscape especially services for
‘ordinary Americans’ – and our research infrastructure is
underdeveloped compared to such professions as medicine”
(p. 193).
It is here that information science has a role to play. First,
the rapid expansion of information technology over the last
twenty years has drastically altered the information
landscape. Information of all kinds is more accessible,
available in a wider variety of formats, and produced and
disseminated by a wider range of providers. The trend is
especially evident in domains that were formerly controlled
by professionals: medicine and law. Second, e-government
initiatives have made legal information much more widely
accessible, though barriers still exist; a similar evolution in
the field of health/medicine occurred, beginning with
PubMed in 1997. In the health domain, the rise of the
“patient-consumer” has been widely documented; many
studies focus on the accuracy of consumer health
information, its effect on doctor-patient relationships,
and/or consumer health information seeking, evaluation and
processing, and decision-making. We lack similar
knowledge about the role of information technology for the
legal consumer, or any information about the relationship of
information acquisition and legal consciousness. If law
pervades everyday life, are people better at recognizing it
today, both in terms of searching for and finding the legal
information they need, and in incidental encounters with
legal information?
THEORETICAL APPROACH
Historically, studies of the relationship between non-
lawyers and the legal system were framed in terms of
dispute resolution and whether legal problems reached a
lawyer or courthouse (Kritzer, 1990; Felstiner, Abel and
Sarat, 1981). Studies of information acquisition by lawyers
(e.g., Leckie, Pettigrew and Sylvain, 1996; Wilkinson,
2001) followed, but they did not lead to similar research on
legal consumers. The most significant recent research on
public legal information acquisition came from the large-
scale (N=10,512 adults) 2009 English and Welsh Civil and
Social Justice Survey (CSJS), which was prompted both by
efforts in the United Kingdom to make government services
electronically accessible. Researchers connected with the
Legal Services Research Centre (LSRC) in London
produced several analyses of the data focusing on online
information, frequently noting the dearth of research on the
use of the internet as an advice resource in any non-health
setting in the process. Various combinations of LSRC
associates produced analyses of the data; see, e.g., Denvir,
Balmer and Pleasance, 2011; Denver, Balmer and Buck,
2012, 2013a; Buck, Pleasance and Balmer, 2008).
Pleasance was an advisor on a National Science Foundation
grant-funded project (Sandefur, 2014) that surveyed a U.S.
nationwide sample on their experiences with “civil justice
situations; findings indicated that people used self-help
(taking action on their own without third party assistance)
in 46% of these situations.
This study adopted a more holistic approach, based on
research in human information behavior (HIB). Of
particular importance are theories recognizing that
individuals acquire information as a part of routine
activities, both through acts of searching and incidentally as
a part of passive monitoring of everyday life (Savolainen,
1995; Williamson 1998). In contrast to legal professionals,
lay consumers of legal information have a wider array of
purposes (e.g., practical, affective) and a larger potential
information sources, both formal and informal. Most
notably, Savolainen’s (1995, 2008) everyday life
information seeking (ELIS) model has been adopted by
many scholars in consumer health information seeking
studies (see, e.g., Zhang, Zambrowicz et al., 2004; Genuis,
2012) and studies of opportunistic information discovery
(Yadamsuren, 2010). As both legal and health issues carry
the potential for significant disruption of routine activities,
the integrative focus of the theory is particularly appropriate
here.
Other theoretical frameworks informed this study. A three-
part assessment of information seeking -- the seeker’s
context, the system (or means of discovery) employed, and
the sources utilized -- was made explicit in models by
Wilson (1981, 1999, 2005; Wilson and Walsh, 2005). This
tripartite division of seeker, system, and source has proven
to be robust and durable. Erdelez (1999) introduced the
concept of information encountering (IE), or serendipitous
information discovery. She found several elements useful
in understanding the experience of IE: the information
user/encounterer; the environment in which the
encountering occurred; the problem- or interest-based
characteristics of the information encountered; and the
temporal characteristics of the information need (Erdelez,
1999, 2004, 2005; see also Fisher, Landry, and Naumer,
2007; Foster and Ford, 2003). Subsequent studies have
affirmed the role of opportunistic information discovery in
human information behavior (see Andre, Teevan and
Dumais, 2009; Miwa, Egusa et al., 2011; Williamson,
Quayyum et al., 2012; Yadamsuren and Erdelez, 2010).
For this study, relevant general models of information
seeking and acquisition were used to determine independent
variables. Consumer health studies were particularly
instructive: race/ethnicity, gender, level of education,
3
income, and age have been examined, usually in the context
of the frequency of information seeking. In fact, health
studies on the relationship of demographic factors and
information acquisition are so numerous that only a few
examples can be summarized here. A meta-analysis on
health information seeking by Anker, Reinhart and Feeley
(2011) found that females, those with higher levels of
education, and higher-income persons were more likely to
search for health information, particularly on the internet.
Health information seeking was also associated with having
a Caucasian racial background, a younger age, or greater
health literacy. See also, e.g., Cotton and Gupta, 2004
(several demographic characteristics distinguished online
and offline information seekers, including age, income, and
education); Fox and Duggan, 2013 (women, younger
people, white adults, those who live in households earning
$75,000 or more, and those with college or advanced
degrees were more likely to go online to figure out a
possible diagnosis).
More specifically, age was significant in studies by Hall,
Bernhardt et al. (2014), Getz and Weissman (2010),
Manafo and Wong (2012), Sharit, Czaja, Hernandez et al.
(2012) (and, in the legal setting, Denvir, Balmer and
Pleasance, 2013b). A meta-analysis by Hallyburton and
Evarts (2014) looked at the gender disparity in health
information-seeking by males and females; studies indicate
that men use the internet more than women, but women are
more likely to search for health information online,
regardless of other demographic factors. Both males and
females turned to the internet first for health information,
and it was the information source they consulted the most
frequently (see also Manierre, 2015). Studies of racial and
ethnic groups conducted by Rooks, Wiltshire et al. (2012),
Nguyen and Bellamy (2006), and Kim (2013), among
others, identified differences in health information seeking
behavior. Numerous health information studies have
looked at socioeconomic factors, though hardly ever to the
exclusion of other demographic characteristics (see, e.g.,
Kontos, Emmons et al., 2011; Bell, 2014.
Along with the customary demographic variables, personal
experience has consistently been shown to be a strong
predictor of subjects’ perceptions (see Dirikx, Gelders and
van den Bulck, 2013). Studies of procedural justice, while
focused on courtroom experiences, reveal the role an
individual’s previous experience with the legal system
plays in opinions of the law’s fairness and the likelihood of
gaining a just outcome. Negative experiences in court lead
to a reluctance to rely on formal legal action and possibly,
by extrapolation, either increased self-help in the form of
information seeking or avoidance. Perceived procedural
injustice, previous experience, and race were analyzed by
Longazel, Parker and Sun (2011); the authors noted that the
scholarly consensus is that court users have more
confidence in the system if they perceive they were treated
fairly regardless of the outcome of their cases (see
Rottman, 2015; Tyler, 2003, 1984). In the health
information arena, studies by Lillie-Blanton, Brodie et al.
(2000), Jha, Orav et al. (2008), and Rutten, Squiers et al.,
(2006) examined aspects of health information seeking and
previous experience.
Acquisition of information has also been tied to source
type. Studies have shown that source characteristics (e.g.,
quality and accessibility) and information source types
(e.g., relational and nonrelational sources) influence the
selection of information resources (see, e.g., Fidel and
Green, 2004; Zimmer, Henry and Butler, 2007). Source
type is relevant in both search and IE experiences. A health
study by Palsdottir (2010) looked at the use of types of
information sources in health and lifestyle information
acquisition both purposefully and opportunistically --
grouping them into four channels: media; health specialists;
internet; and interpersonal sources. She concluded that
information encountering was an integral part of health
information behavior. Further, those subjects who were
active (frequent) purposive information-seekers were also
“active” at information encountering, and “passive” (less
frequent) information seekers were passive (less frequent)
encounterers. See also, e.g., Arora, Hesse et al., 2007;
Zhang, 2013b.
Finally, exposure is relevant to experiences of IE, as the
likelihood of “stumbling upon” current law-related issues is
increased by mass media attention. Studies indicate that
when called upon to respond to survey questions about the
courts, members of the public will draw upon images
presented in various forms of media (Rottman, 2015;
Papke, 2007); further, survey respondents have identified
both fictional and non-fictional TV programming with legal
themes as frequent sources of information about courts
(National Center for State Courts, 1999; Annenberg
Foundation, 2006). However, research in channel
complementarity theory indicates that mass media channels
and interpersonal channels are often strategically linked
(Tian and Robinson, 2008; Dutta-Bergman, 2004; Ruppel
and Rains, 2012) in purposeful search experiences as well.
METHODOLOGY
The survey consisted of 45 multiple-choice questions. It
was administered through Qualtrics (www.Qualtrics.com),
a private software research company based in Provo, Utah.
Qualtrics provides researchers with the option of drawing
subjects for online surveys from panels. These panels are
groups of individuals who have agreed to participate in a
series of online surveys, in return for incentives in the
form of points toward gift cards. While individual studies
of online surveys generally found that incentives had little
to no effect in increasing participation (Fricker, 2008, citing
Coomly, 2000, and Kypri and Gallagher, 2003), Goritz’s
(2006) meta-analysis found an overall 19% increase in
response rate when incentives were offered. Some
particular issues identified in using panels include survey
fatigue and the inability to verify screening and
administration protocols (Schoenherr, Ellram and Tate,
2015). However, they have the advantage of providing
participants that are less uniform than the student-based
samples; Roulin (2015), in a comparison of student versus
Qualtrics and Amazon Mechanical Turk panels, found that
the latter subjects were older, mostly employed, almost
evenly divided by gender, and more ethnically diverse.
Survey questions were adapted from the study on health
and lifestyle information-seeking behavior by Palsdottir
(2010). Palsdottir looked at both purposive and
opportunistic information acquisition in relation to
demographic characteristics and information sources used.
These questions were subsequently used by Basic (2015) in
a study of online health information acquisition (see also
Basic and Erdelez, 2015). In the instant study, search
experiences were examined through questions about the
frequency of intentional legal information acquisition
(“Very frequently,” “frequently,” “occasionally,” “rarely,”
and “never”) in the previous six months.
The survey questionnaire contained an introduction to the
subject matter of the survey (both searching for and
opportunistically discovering legal information) and the
time period upon which subjects should base their
responses (the previous six months). The limited time
period was selected so that subjects would have a better
recollection of their experiences, and thus more valid
responses. Exclusionary factors were covered in initial
questions to limit subjects to adults (over age 18) without
formal legal training.
Questions in the survey used non-technical language and
key terms were defined at the start. In order to make the
serendipitous nature of IE apparent, the phrase “stumble[d]
on information unexpectedly” was used. Since a potential
validity problem exists if subjects do not have an accurate
understanding of the questions, domain-specific
terminology was avoided.
A concept that was defined specifically was “legal
problem.” Denvir, Balmer and Pleasance (2011) used
“problems with a legal dimension;” as discussed previously,
the definitions in their study were often imprecise. A later
study by Pleasance, Balmer and Reimers (2011) focused on
information seeking looked at the extent to which
laypersons characterized different types of problems as
being “legal.” Almost 80% of problems concerning
personal injury caused by another, immigration, medical
negligence and divorce were characterized as legal; fewer
than 40% of problems with neighbors and approximately
30% of problems concerning homelessness, children’s
education, and landlord-tenant issues were seen as legal. To
avoid this misapprehension, a definition was developed that
(1) broadly defined the scope of a “legal problem” and (2)
conveyed the idea that a “legal problem” involved a
situation with any potential legal ramifications, and not
necessarily a lawsuit.
To draw attention to the definitions, the directive “PLEASE
READ THE FOLLOWING DEFINITIONS
CAREFULLY” was included in capital letters. “Legal
information” was defined as referring to “any topic that has
or potentially could have legal consequences.” The
definition also noted that subjects should view the
definition broadly and included examples (information
about legal procedures, citizen’s rights, news stories, etc.).
A “legal problem” was defined as a particular issue that
might involve legal consequences. Again, examples were
included that illustrated the expansive nature of the
definition (e.g., personal experience in the legal system as a
plaintiff or defendant, a dispute where you needed to
identify your options or legal rights, curiosity about a legal
topic, hearing a passing reference to a legal topic).
Survey questions were designed to elicit information about
information acquisition related to the civil justice system
and civil legal matters. Frequency of search (“Within the
last six months, how often did you search for legal
information?”) and IE (“Within the last six months, how
often did you unexpectedly stumble upon legal
information?”) were examined in terms of their
relationships to the independent and control variables.
The survey was pretested in preview mode over a two-week
period in March 2016 prior to its administration by
Qualtrics; several questions were reworded for greater
clarity. A second pilot test of the survey was administered
by Qualtrics to 35 subjects during the week of May 8, 2016,
after which bolding and underlining were added for
emphasis and an attention filter question was inserted to
deter insufficient-effort responding (IER) and to ensure
validity (McGonagle, 2015; Huang, Liu et al., 2014). It
was reopened in May 2016, and a total of 385 unique
completed responses were collected. Fill-in-the-blank
responses were reviewed and, when possible, coded.
FINDINGS
Personal Characteristics
One component of the study targeted the relationship of
demographic characteristics and previous experience with
the legal system on the frequency of search and IE. Six
variables -- age, gender, education, race, income, and
previous experience with the legal system were used to
provide foundational information about the relationship of
legal information acquisition and personal characteristics.
The data were used in a regression analysis to determine
which variables were significant predictors of search and
IE.
5
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of respondents
conducting searches and experiencing IE
While most of the demographic variables were
straightforward, Black, Asian, Hispanic, and other racial
groups were combined as “nonwhite” because of their low
numbers. The “previous experience” variable was based
upon responses to three survey questions, which were used
to create a combined score ranging from 0 to 6.
Table 2. Creation of previous experience variable
Regression analysis: search
A direct logistic regression analysis was performed on the
frequency of search (as outcome) and six demographic
predictors: age, gender, education, race, income, and
previous experience with the legal system. After the
deletion of standardized residuals greater than two standard
deviations, data from 355 respondents were available for
analysis (246 who conducted a search, and 109 who did
not). A test of the full model with all six predictors against
a constant-only model was statistically reliable, χ2 (6, 355)
= 57.23, p < .01, indicating that the predictors, as a set,
reliably distinguished between respondents who conducted
a search and those who did not. Prediction was satisfactory,
with 89% of those who conducted a search and 33% of
those who did not conduct a search correctly predicted, for
an overall success rate of 72%.
Table 3 shows regression coefficients, Wald statistics, odds
ratios, and 95% confidence intervals for each of the six
predictors. According to the Wald statistic, only age (z =
27.29, p < .01), income (z = 13.315, p < .01), and
experience with the legal system (z = 4.919, p = .03) were
found to be significant predictors after controlling for all
other variables in the model. With each increase in the age
variable (approximately 10 years), the likelihood of
conducting a search decreased 42% (Exp(B) = .58). With
each increase in income, the likelihood of a search
increased 40% (Exp(B) = 1.40) and with each increase in
experience with the legal system, the likelihood of a search
increased 33% (Exp(B) = 1.33). In other words, the lower
the age, the higher the income, and the more previous
experience with the legal system, the more likely the
subject was to conduct a search for legal information.
Table 3. Logistic regression analysis of search as a
function of demographic variables
Regression analysis: IE
A direct logistic regression analysis was performed with IE
as outcome and the same six demographic predictors: age,
gender, education, race, income, and experience with the
legal system. After deleting cases with missing data (n =
20) and deletion of standardized residuals greater than two
standard deviations (n = 6), data from 359 respondents were
available for analysis: 219 who were associated with an IE
experience, and 140 who were not. A test of the full model
with all six predictors against a constant-only model was
statistically reliable, χ2 (6, 359) = 52.26, p < .01, indicating
that the predictors, as a set, reliably distinguished between
respondents who were associated with IE experience and
those who were not. Prediction was satisfactory, with 83%
associated with IE experience and 46% of those who were
not, for an overall success rate of 69%.
Table 4 shows regression coefficients, Wald statistics, odds
ratios, and 95% confidence intervals for each of the six
predictors. According to the Wald statistic, only age (z =
16.420, p < .01), race (z = 6.242, p = .01), and previous
experience with the legal system (z = 19.229, p < .01) were
found to be significant predictors of IE after controlling for
all other variables in the model. With each increase in the
age variable (approximately 10 years), the likelihood of
being associated with an opportunistic discovery of
information decreased 32% (Exp(B) =.68). The likelihood
of a white person, compared to a nonwhite person,
experiencing IE was approximately 70% (Exp(B) = 1.704),
and with each increase in experience with the legal system,
the likelihood of IE experience increased 75% (Exp(B) =
1.75). In other words, younger, nonwhite individuals with
more previous experience with the legal system were
associated with IE.
Table 4. Logistic regression analysis of IE as a function
of demographic variables
Environmental Exposure
“Environmental exposure” related to information sources
and mass media exposure. It was operationalized as the
amount of contact with various source types. For search,
these encompassed five types of contacts (personal contacts
with non-legal professionals, internet searching for laws,
internet searching for discussions, contacts with legal
professionals, and searches for print material). For IE, eight
types of contacts (search engine results, general website,
social media, internet news, TV news, fictional TV
programs, print material, and non-lawyer personal contacts)
were included. Cronbach’s alpha was satisfactory for both
the search sources (.71) and the IE sources (.93).
Approximately 42% of searchers used the internet often to
search for applicable laws. Twenty-two percent often
looked for internet discussions on their legal topic. When
these percentages are combined with the category of
“sometime” searchers for applicable laws and legal
discussions, the dominance of web sources for legal
information is even more apparent (over 76% for applicable
laws, 54.7% for discussions). This is consistent with
health information studies, which emphasize the role of
web searching as the initial and most popular research
source. Legal professionals were rarely contacted,
suggesting that self-help is the preferred option. Using the
same combination of “often” and “sometimes,” family and
friends were consulted about 1/3 of the time by searchers.
Table 5. Sources Used to conduct searches for legal
information (n = 256)
Searchers indicated that they were most frequently
motivated to use certain sources based on ease of access.
They identified ease of access as the most influential factor
in their use of search engines (84.7%), general websites
(64%), social media (55%), and advice from friends/family
(45%). Trustworthiness and accuracy were identified as the
main reasons for using law-specific websites like FindLaw
(54.3%) and for contacting a legal professional (48.4%).
Expense played a very minor role in the choice of any of
the listed information sources (0-3.8%); this result was
contrary to the expectation that internet sources would be
preferred based on low cost.
7
Table 6. Reason for using source to search for legal
information
Sources of IE experiences were somewhat different. As
combined, 51% of the information encounterers identified
internet-based sources (search engines, general websites,
social media, and internet news) as “very frequent” and
“frequent” sources of legal IE. Non-internet media was a
less important source; TV programs (fictional and news)
accounted for a little less than ¼ of legal IE experiences.
Friends and family were less frequent sources of legal IE
than search.
Table 7. Sources of Legal IE Experiences (n = 228)
Participants’ exposure to mass media was measured based
on yes or no responses to seven types of activities (“Do you
engage in any of the following activities more than once or
twice a month?”). Environmental exposure was also
measured by the sources that subjects used to search for
legal information within the past six months (Q10); again,
they responded Yes or No to seven types of sources.
Responses from those participants who indicated that they
had conducted a search in the past 6 months (n = 257) or
experienced IE over the same period (N=228) were used.
Table 8. Exposure to multiple forms of media (more
than once or twice a month)
Two t tests indicated that subjects who conducted searches
and experienced IE reported significantly higher exposure
scores. These higher scores indicated that they engaged
with more forms of media, which may show greater interest
in general legal information, more willingness to pursue
legal information by active means, and more recognition of
unintended encounters with legal information.
Table 9. Exposure to multiple forms of media by search
and IE
DISCUSSION
To summarize, relationships between search frequency and
three personal characteristics (age, income, and previous
experience) were found. Null hypotheses could not be
rejected for the other personal characteristics variables
(gender, education, and race). As with search,
relationships between IE frequency and age and previous
experience were found; however, race (nonwhite) was also
positively associated with IE, and income was not (along
with gender and education). In addition, a positive
relationship was found between environmental exposure
and frequency of search and IE.
The personal characteristics results were interesting. As
noted above, previous experience has been found to be a
predictor of information acquisition in health and other HIB
studies. While most studies in human information behavior
found that age was associated with search/IE frequency
(such that younger persons are associated with more
frequent information acquisition), higher income and more
education are often found to be predictors as well.
Further, many of the health studies found that women
searched and encountered health information more than
men, and that white individuals were more likely to search
and encounter health information than nonwhites. The lack
of a relationship between search/encounter frequency and
gender in the legal information setting may deserve more
exploration. The health studies suggest that women play a
larger role in the dissemination of health information than
men, possibly because of the strength of their affective ties.
A study of “lay information mediaries” (LIMs) by
Abrahamson et al. (2008) looked at the relationship of
gender and health information seeking. Of the 211 survey
participants in the Abrahamson study, 77% of the LIMs
identified were female, and most searched because of
family members and people they were “extremely close” to
(81%). Fifty-one percent undertook these searches mostly
without prompting. The authors concluded that LIM
behavior may be related to gender and relationship tie
strength, and might be more internally than externally
motivated. See also Hupfer and Detlor, 2006 (gender-
related self-concept traits known as self- and other-
orientation are associated with self-reported search
frequency for medical and government information). These
motivations may not hold in the legal setting.
As noted above, income was related to search frequency,
but not to frequency of IE. Again, the health information
studies may shed some light on the issues of gender, race
and income. For example, Bell (2014) conducted 58
interviews of women of varied socioeconomic status (SES)
on the topic of infertility; all of the lower SES subjects were
Black, and all of the higher SES subjects were white. Bell
found that women of lower SES used the media, especially
entertainment television, as their primary source of
information on infertility; women of high SES used a
greater variety of sources, including friends, family,
physicians, books, the internet, etc. While Bell was not
interested in IE, her conclusions related to social and
cultural capital have some explanatory value in that context:
mass media sources are more likely than professional
sources, or medical literature, to lead to “accidental”
acquisition of health information. Bell’s lower SES women
were also less frequent searchers, lacking the time, means,
and research skills to do so. (See also Keeley, Wright and
Condit, 2009; Shieh, Broome and Stump, 2010). Similarly,
a study by Kontos, Emmons et al. (2011) identified
determinants of what the authors called “health information
mavenism” (the tendency to share health information by
word of mouth) among lower socioeconomic and minority
subjects. A larger social network, being female, and being
older were factors associated with higher mavenism scores,
along with being moderate consumers of general media.
Untangling the relationships between gender, income, and
race in the health context is tricky; a more narrowly focused
analysis of these factors in terms of legal information
acquisition might be helpful.
The environmental exposure results aligned more closely
with expectations. The dominance of the internet as the
source of for both legal search and IE was confirmed by the
study results, and this is consistent with health information
acquisition. In terms of legal search, the implication is that
most individuals will do at least some preliminary
investigation related to their legal problem on their own.
Sandefur (2014) found the same reliance on self-help in her
study of Americans faced with civil justice situations; 46%
of subjects did not seek assistance from any third party, and
very few (8% of a subset selected for in-depth followup)
involved courts or tribunals of any kind. Here, ease of
access, rather than expense, was the main factor in subjects’
selection of internet self-help; this was also the result in
Sandefur’s survey, where only 17% of subjects identified
cost as a reason for not seeking formal legal assistance.
It is important to note the limitations of the study. First,
convenience sampling was used, resulting in a demographic
profile that was not representative of the U.S. population.
The use of an online survey meant that persons without
ready access to the internet were excluded. The use of
subjects from a Qualtrics panel for the survey phase further
limited the sample to volunteers who were motivated by
point rewards for survey completion. Finally, study makes
use of self-reported data, which carries the risk that
respondents will forget information, misinterpret it, or
answer dishonestly.
Finally, the results reported here are partial. Other
components of the research examined the role of affective
factors (self-efficacy, vigilance, perception of the legal
system) and perceived risk. The survey results were
augmented by a qualitative interview phase, which proved
to have significant explanatory value. However, the
demographic and environmental results provide initial
foundational data for additional studies.
CONCLUSION
The results reported here are part of a first step toward a
fuller understanding of legal information acquisition one
that may eventually hold the same investigatory allure as
health information behavior. The broader theoretical
significance of the study lies in its relationship to legal
consciousness. In this notoriously hard-to-define area, the
process of acquisition of legal information may shed light
on citizens’ perceptions of issues and rights as “legal,”
relevant, or actionable. The roles of multiple information
sources in legal information acquisition are worthy of
additional scrutiny. Demographic characteristics, as in
health studies, identify segments of the population that are
receiving and recognizing legal information or not.
9
Moreover, the study is directed at legal information
acquisition. The term “acquisition” is used to encompass
information about legal rights and remedies that is obtained
by purposive search and opportunistically. The focus on
the roles of intentional and serendipitous acquisition of
legal information broadens the scope of our knowledge and
provides a fuller, holistic exploration of the role of “the
law” within the everyday life experience of ordinary
citizens.
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