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The role of serendipity in the story ideation process of print media journalists
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to build upon the studies of journalism from an LIS perspective by exploring and differentiating the purposive behavior of newspaper reporters from their serendipitous encounters with information that lead to new story ideas. This paper also provides a path toward pedagogical improvements in training the modern journalism workforce in being more open to creative story ideas.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilized semi-structured telephone interviews. Participants were recruited via e-mail after collecting contact information through the Cision database. The study sample was drawn from newspaper reporters who work at or freelance for the top 25 metropolitan newspapers in the USA, in terms of circulation size, based on data from the Alliance for Audited Media. A total of 15 participants were interviewed.
Findings
This paper provides insight into the story ideation process of journalists in that the study participants generally do not think about how they are coming up with story ideas as much as they are striving to place themselves in situations where, based on their experience and interests, they know they are more likely to encounter a good idea. Each encounter proved meaningful in some powerful fashion, which speaks to the historical importance of serendipity in achieving breakthroughs and discoveries in a wide variety of fields.
Research limitations/implications
The sampling frame for this study was relatively small, representing 8 percent of the total number of working newspaper journalists from the top 25 newspapers in the USA, in terms of circulation size. Therefore, the findings are not generalizable to the entire population of journalists in this country.
Practical implications
The findings point to the importance of a prepared mind in facilitating serendipitous episodes. In the case of journalism, that means developing a heightened news sense and cultivating routines where they place themselves in trigger-rich environments. Pedagogically, journalism education must include courses in creative storytelling to help train the modern newspaper workforce in an ever-expanding and competitive media landscape. These courses, ideally paired with techniques and models from the field of information science and learning technologies, could help train young journalists in methods that enhance their ability to identify, seek and pursue serendipitous stories.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills a need in journalism studies in finding variability in news routines by utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines journalism studies and library and information science models to probe how journalists encounter ideas incidentally. Previous research in this area has focused on how news consumers serendipitously encounter information. This paper takes a fresh approach to explore how creative ideas are encountered serendipitously in the construction of news.
... This balancing complicates journalism and makes journalists' information seeking rich in considerations that are central to their work. It also makes journalists' information seeking of interest to the research community on information behavior/information practices (e.g., Bird-Meyer et al., 2019;Lopez et al., 2022). However, most of the research in this community bypasses the studies of journalists' information seeking. ...
... This way of getting story ideas has a serendipitous element and requires that the journalists invest the resources it takes to know "how to position [themselves] in a spot to get a good story" (Bird-Meyer et al., 2019). In comparison, only 32% and 30% of the journalists often or very often get initial story ideas from a colleague or from personal experience, respectively (Viswanath et al., 2008). ...
... By pursuing multiple information needs in parallel, the total information-seeking process becomes more efficient. Furthermore, serendipitous encounters with information become more likely (Bird-Meyer et al., 2019). ...
In producing news stories, journalists depend on information obtained from sources. This paper reviews the literature on journalists’ information seeking. The 90 studies included in the review cover how journalists identify sources, interact with sources, interpret information, and manage sources. In addition to quality and accessibility, balance in the group of sources selected is an important criterion in journalists’ identification of sources. However, the importance journalists assign to balance stands in contrast to the frequent finding of bias in their source selections. In interactions with sources, the sources frequently provide ideas for new stories in addition to information for current ones. This finding shows how multiple instances of information seeking coexist and combine into a mesh of intersecting information-seeking processes. In interpreting information, journalists are acutely aware that sources may have an agenda or be misinformed. While journalists praise information checking, they regularly bypass it or replace direct checks for information quality with indirect checks, such as whether the source appears trustworthy. In managing sources, journalists engage in boundary work to regulate their relationship with sources. They also cultivate long-term relationships with selected sources. The review findings are discussed with respect to how journalism shapes journalists’ information seeking and what implications the findings have for information-behavior research in other domains.
... Similarly, Keith met with businesses to explore new product ideas to understand 'what they need and then…try to link [my] expertise'. This approach aligns to Dervin's sense-making, where individuals construct understandings within a social context(1998) and reflects the value of positioning oneself in a situation where serendipitous discovery can occur(Bird-Meyer et al., 2019). Interviewees' early-stage relationships were often brief encounters, reflecting communal sharing, compared to formal partnerships, which require detailed understandings of all parties' roles (as per equality matching).Curiosity also predisposed researchers to coproduction and adaptation to challenges. ...
Introduction. This paper examines academics’ information behaviour in undertaking research for societal impact. It explores how researcher-stakeholder relationships provide sites of information exchange where academics develop skills and knowledge needed to undertake impact work. Method. This qualitative study involved semi-structured interviews with 27 academics at 18 institutions across Australia. Participants were recruited across disciplines and at various career stages. Analysis. Constructivist grounded theory was used as a methodology, with Fiske's Relational Models Theory as a framework for analysis. Results. Results show that information behaviours relating to impact work were enacted within relationships with industry, community, and government partners. These relationships were characterised by four elements: curiosity, reciprocity, trust, and engagement. Conclusion. The paper presents a model of Relational-Informational Impact Practice to guide individual researchers’ information behaviours and to inform university support programs for researchers engaged in societal impact work. The model outlines the interplay between curiosity, reciprocity, trust, and engagement, and impact-relevant information behaviours, such as information needs identification, sharing practices, and serendipity.
... Our research reveals that consumers induce less purchase intention of unexpected products when they experience serendipity than when they experience personal choice. The extant literature on serendipity showed that serendipity in an encounter can bri many benefits from different fields and perspectives, such as the exploration of business opportunities on the platform for technology companies (Moretto and Vasilchenko, 2011), the source of creative story ideas for media reporters (Bird-Meyer et al., 2019), the possibility of information seeking behaviors for lawyers (Solomon and Bronstein, 2016). However, these studies mainly focus on the positive effect of serendipity. ...
Previous studies on the follow-up effect of serendipity mostly focused on the positive effects and less on the negative effects. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to investigate the negative effect of serendipity on the purchase intention of unexpected products. To verify all hypotheses in this article, we used online and offline survey data in China. Three experimental results showed that serendipity contains a certain degree of uncertainty, which will cause consumers’ perceived risk and decrease the purchase intention of unexpected products. Perceived risk plays a mediating role in the effect of serendipity on the purchase intention of unexpected products. Moreover, regulatory focus moderates the effect of serendipity on purchase intention of unexpected products. Specifically, for prevention-focused individuals, the negative effect of serendipity on the purchase intention of unexpected products is strengthened. For promotion-focused individuals, the negative effect of serendipity on the purchase intention of unexpected products is weakened. This article augments the understanding of the negative effects of serendipity and provides theoretical guidance and support for the management practice of marketers.
... Serendipity can help organizations be more creative and innovative (Cunha, 2010). Past studies on IE have looked at serendipity conceptually (Erdelez, 2005;Agarwal, 2015), in various information environmentsphysical (Björneborn, 2008) and digital (McCay-Peet & Toms, 2017), learning (Giordano, 2010), different user groups such as historians (Buchanan & Erdelez, 2019), journalists (Bird-Meyer, Erdelez, & Bossaller, 2019), shoppers (Ocepek, 2017), and various other contexts of information behavior (Agarwal, 2018), but were not focused on how people experience IE in an organizational context. Ocepek (2018) argues that everyday includes work. ...
It is not clear if people’s high propensity for information encountering translates to organizational work settings. We investigate the relationship between individual predisposition for information encountering with the frequency of individual information encountering at work. Through a survey of 274 medical librarians of the top 100 medical schools, we found that individual information encountering was a significant predictor of information encountering at work. This finding helps information behavior researchers discover the transfer of behaviors from everyday-life to organizational environments. It brings attention to the need for greater support for information encounters at work, which may enhance their contribution to the organizational objectives.
This paper explores the role of serendipity in journalistic decision-making. The authors draw on 25 years of newsroom ethnography to introduce the concept of a horizon of foreseeable forthcoming phases (HFFP). This concept encompasses the potential next steps that journalists envision in their text production processes, based on the decisions they already made.
The authors then analyze two complementary cases to illustrate how serendipity can influence journalistic decision-making. In the Bishop case, Type I serendipity opens up a valuable alternative to the journalist’s planning, leading them to pursue a new story. In contrast, in the Leba case, Type II serendipity is essential to helping the journalist overcome a seemingly hopeless situation. The authors conclude by arguing that serendipitous moments and the resulting emergent solutions hold the potential to reshape journalistic practices and routines, both on the micro level of text production, and on the macro level of professional development. They emphasize the growing importance of serendipity in times where human intelligence competes with algorithms.
Purpose
Websites, search engines, recommender systems, artificial intelligence and digital libraries have the potential to support serendipity for unexpected interaction with information and ideas which would lead to favored information discoveries. This paper aims to explore the current state of research into serendipity particularly related to information encountering.
Design/methodology/approach
This study provides bibliometric review of 166 studies on serendipity extracted from the Web of Science. Two bibliometric analysis tools HisCite and RStudio (Biblioshiny) are used on 30 years of data. Citation counts and bibliographic records of the papers are assessed using HisCite. Moreover, visualization of prominent sources, countries, keywords and the collaborative networks of authors and institutions are assessed using RStudio (Biblioshiny) software. A total of 166 papers on serendipity were found from the period 1989 to 2022, and the most influential authors, articles, journals, institutions and countries among these were determined.
Findings
The highest number of 11 papers were published in the year 2019. Makri and Erdelez are the most influential authors for contributing studies on serendipity. “Journal of Documentation” is the top-ranking journal. University College London is the prominent affiliation contributing highest number of studies on serendipity. The UK and the USA are the prominent nations contributing highest number of research. Authorship pattern for research on serendipity reveals involvement of single author in majority of the studies. OA Green model is the most preferred model for archiving of research articles by the authors who worked on serendipity. In addition, majority of the research outputs have received a citation ranging from 0 to 50.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper may be the first bibliometric analysis on serendipity research using bibliometric tools in library and information science studies. The paper would definitely open new avenues for other serendipity researchers.
Purpose
This study investigated the moderating effect of organizational knowledge management performance on the sharing and use of information encountered by serendipity within the organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors surveyed 274 medical librarians from the top 100 medical schools.
Findings
Individual information encountering predicted information encountering at work, which, in turn, predicted organizational sharing of encountered information. When the propensity to encounter information was high, then organizational knowledge management performance moderated the effect between organizational encountering and organizational sharing of information. Encountered information at work was only present when high organizational knowledge management performance was in place.
Research limitations/implications
This finding helps information behavior researchers discover the transfer of behaviors from everyday life to organizational environments.
Practical implications
It shows the need for greater support for information encounterers at work and the role of knowledge management, which may enhance their contribution to the organizational objectives.
Originality/value
Information encountering involves finding information by chance. Studies on information encountering have not focused on work settings and if the individual propensity to encounter information translates to organizational settings. Also, the relationship between information encountering and organizational knowledge management has not been studied so far.
Creativity and verification are intrinsic to high‐quality journalism, but their role is often poorly visible in news story creation. Journalists face relentless commercial pressures that threaten to compromise story quality, in a digital era where their ethical obligation not to mislead the public has never been more important. It is therefore crucial to investigate how journalists can be supported to produce stories that are original, impactful, and factually accurate, under tight deadlines. We present findings from 14 semistructured interviews, where we asked journalists to discuss the creation of a recent news story to understand the process and associated human information behavior (HIB). Six overarching behaviors were identified: discovering, collecting, organizing, interrogating, contextualizing, and publishing. Creativity and verification were embedded throughout news story creation and integral to journalists' HIB, highlighting their ubiquity. They often manifested at a micro level; in small‐scale but vital activities that drove and facilitated story creation. Their ubiquitous role highlights the importance of creativity and verification support being woven into functionality that facilitates information acquisition and use in digital information tools for journalists.
This work starts with a background study of serendipity, its meaning in the context of information discovery, its interrelation with bibliographic relationships, and the technical possibilities for practical implementation of a relationships based visual navigation in a library discovery interface to achieve serendipitous resource discovery. The methodology for developing the prototype consists of two components – theoretical base and practical steps. The theoretical framework includes an indepth study of the concept of bibliographic relationships as proposed by experts, as reflected in bibliographic data models and as included in bibliographic formats and metadata schemas. The practical sides deal with the application of the theoretical framework in designing a prototype that, in addition to other typical retrieval features, supports visual navigational facility driven by bibliographic relationships. The components, tools and standards of the entire software architecture are all open source and open standards.
This qualitative study explores the information behavior of newspaper reporters regarding their serendipitous encounters with information that lead to story ideas, and how newspaper editors affect reporters’ ability to pursue such encountered ideas. As an interdisciplinary examination in human information behavior and journalism studies, behaviors and routines emerged that encouraged and potentially limited certain behaviors and routines. The findings also identify behaviors wherein newspaper editors match reporters with certain traits to certain story assignments.
Journalists and librarians share a common goal of providing information to the public, yet very little is known about how journalists’ information seeking behavior intersects with libraries. This case study seeks to understand the information seeking behavior of environmental journalists by investigating how their information needs intersect with the library and how their information seeking behavior changed over the course of their 9-month fellowship at the University of Colorado Boulder. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven environmental journalists at the beginning and end of their fellowship, while an open coding approach was used to identify themes. Generally, study participants conducted research by (1) identifying a story idea and conducting a preliminary search, (2) expanding their knowledge on the topic through scientific articles and interviews with experts, (3) conducting field research, and (4) completing research when information is redundant and they are confident with their knowledge. This process, and their growing feelings of confidence as they conducted research, were similar to, but not exactly, Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process model. Their interactions with the library were mostly limited to accessing books and articles. Overall, there was little change in the participants’ information seeking behavior, possibly due to limited time to learn new resources, reliance on preexisting research habits, professional competence, and lack of awareness of library services (e.g. librarians, workshops, and public academic library access). An understanding of journalists’ information seeking behavior can help librarians conduct instruction and outreach efforts that address journalists’ information needs.
An interdisciplinary approach explores how journalists embrace the unexpected as part of their reporting routines using Erdelez’s framework of information encountering from the study of human information behavior and the concepts of news routines and story ideation from journalism studies. This paper provides a fresh perspective on the sociology of news in finding that the participating journalists embraced the unexpected by routinizing encountering of story leads and opening themselves to the opportunities they provide.
Mobile applications have the ability to present information to users that is influenced by their surroundings, activities and interests. Such applications have the potential to influence the likelihood of individuals experiencing'serendipity’, through a combination of information, context, insight and activity. This study reports the deployment of a system that sends push text suggestions to users throughout the day, where the content of those messages is informed by users’ experience and interests. We investigated the responses to and interactions with messages that varied in format and relevance, and which were received at different times throughout the day. Sixteen participants were asked to use a mobile diary application to record their experiences and thoughts regarding information that was received over a period of five consecutive days. Results suggest that participants’ perception of the received suggestions was influenced by the relevance of the suggestion to their interests, but that there were also positive attitudes towards seemingly irrelevant information. Qualitative data indicates that participants, if in an appropriate time and place, are willing to accept and act upon push suggestions as long as the number of suggestions that they receive is not overwhelming. This study contributes towards an understanding of how mobile users make connections with new information, furthering our understanding of how serendipitous connections and insightful thinking could be accommodated using technology.
Purpose
This research seeks to gain a detailed understanding of how researchers come across information serendipitously, grounded in real‐world examples. This research was undertaken to enrich the theoretical understanding of this slippery phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi‐structured critical incident interviews were conducted with 28 interdisciplinary researchers. Interviewees were asked to discuss memorable examples of coming across information serendipitously from their research or everyday life. The data collection and analysis process followed many of the core principles of grounded theory methodology.
Findings
The examples provided were varied, but shared common elements (they involved a mix of unexpectedness and insight and led to a valuable, unanticipated outcome). These elements form part of an empirically grounded process model of serendipity. In this model, a new connection is made that involves a mix of unexpectedness and insight and has the potential to lead to a valuable outcome. Projections are made on the potential value of the outcome and actions are taken to exploit the connection, leading to an (unanticipated) valuable outcome.
Originality/value
The model provides researchers across disciplines with a structured means of understanding and describing serendipitous experiences.
Since devised by Flanagan in 1954 as a tool to explore what people do to achieve an organisational aim, the critical incident technique (CIT) has been used in various disciplines as a method of understanding human behaviour. This paper provides an overview of the use of CIT in the specific field of information behaviour, both in large-scale quantitative studies designed to assess the quality and impact of library and information systems and services, and in more qualitative research examining the information needs and use of particular professions or occupational groups, or of particular societal or community groups. It highlights the inconsistent application of CIT in academic research, and the quantitative versus qualitative tension that exists in discussions of the use of CIT as a data collection tool. The paper also discusses the use of CIT by the authors in a study of the information seeking behaviour of oil and gas professionals in a health and safety context, considering that project in relation to Flanagan’s five main steps in the CIT process, and in terms of the benefits and limitations of the technique identified by Flanagan and by other commentators. The authors believe that CIT has particular advantages in the study of information behaviour as a method of illuminating the ways in which the context of information need impacts on information behaviour, how participants feel, and in particular in identifying positive and negative behaviours in information seeking and use. The authors also argue that CIT must be used in a thoughtful manner and in a full recognition of its weaknesses in the design of future research.
Surveying 1,700 journalists from seventeen countries, this study investigates perceived influences on news work. Analysis reveals a dimensional structure of six distinct domains—political, economic, organizational, professional, and procedural influences, as well as reference groups. Across countries, these six dimensions build up a hierarchical structure where organizational, professional, and procedural influences are perceived as more powerful limits to journalists' work than political and economic influences.
Political processes affect both protest and news coverage of protest, but past research has failed to examine these interactions. Data from one city reveal the interaction of political process, news value, and news routine factors in news coverage of protest versus other mes-sage events. Protests about legislative issues received the most cov-erage. Controlling for issue type, protest forms were covered less when the legislature was in session, while other forms (largely cer-emonies and speeches) were covered more. Yearly variations in cov-erage rates of nonlegislative protests distorted the apparent shape of the protest cycle. Other predictive factors include size, police involvement, conflict, counterdemonstrators, amplified sound, Mon-day event, religious sponsorship (negative), and annual or holiday event.
There is, however, emerging interest among LIS researchers in information encountering. Williamson, Reneker and Zhang discuss accidental discovery of information in the context of a broader study of users' information behavior. Erdelez and Williamson focus specifically on information encountering and incidental information acquisition. (See Further Reading.) It is also important to note that accidental discovery of information has received more research in some other fields, such as "incidental learning" in education, serendipity of scientific discoveries in history of science and accidental discovery of managerial information in the management literature, than it has in LIS. Studying information encountering poses some interesting methodological problems for researchers. First, because information encountering is unexpected, it may be difficult to study it under time and space constraints of an experimental environment. The most practical solution may be to ask users to recall their information encountering experiences. But to what extent do users recognize information encountering as a unique phenomenon? Can they discuss it with a researcher? My research proves that these concerns are unfounded. A majority of participants in my information encountering study, when asked about their past experiences of "bumping into information," were familiar with the notion of accidental discovery of information and could recall these experiences clearly.
Experimental research of opportunistic acquisition of information (OAI) is difficult to design due to the overall opacity of OAI to both the information users and to the researchers. Information encountering (IE) is a specific type of OAI where during search for information on one topic information users accidentally come across information related to some other topic of interest. Building on our prior descriptive investigation of IE, we developed a conceptual framework that explains IE as stopping of information seeking activities for a foreground problem due to noticing, examining, and capturing of information related to some background problem. With objective to evoke IE in users' information behavior and record users' actions during an IE episode, we created a controlled laboratory situation, intended to trigger participants' experience of IE during an information retrieval task. We report about the methodological challenges experienced in this effort and share lessons learned for future experimental studies of opportunistic acquisition of information.
Existing research into serendipitous information encountering has focused on how people stumble upon information, rather than how they create value from the information encountered. This online diary study with follow-up interviews provides an enriched understanding of the subjective value of information encounters and the motivators, barriers and actions involved in creating value from them. We leverage our findings to generate design suggestions for digital information tools aimed at assisting in creating value from encountered information.
Since devised by Flanagan in 1954 as a tool to explore what people do to achieve an organisational aim, the critical incident technique (CIT) has been used in various disciplines as a method of understanding human behaviour. This paper provides an overview of the use of CIT in the specific field of information behaviour,
both in large-scale quantitative studies designed to assess the quality and impact of library and information systems and services, and in more qualitative research examining the information needs and use of particular professions or occupational groups, or of particular societal or community groups. It highlights the inconsistent application of CIT in academic research, and the quantitative versus qualitative tension that exists in discussions of the use of CIT as a data collection tool. The paper also discusses the use of CIT by the authors in a study of the information seeking behaviour of oil and gas professionals in a health and safety context, considering that project in relation to Flanagan’s five main steps in the CIT process, and in terms of the benefits and limitations of the technique identified by Flanagan and by other commentators. The authors believe that CIT has particular
advantages in the study of information behaviour as a method of illuminating the ways in which the context of information need impacts on information behaviour, how participants feel, and in particular in identifying positive and negative behaviours in information seeking and use. The authors also argue that CIT must be used
in a thoughtful manner and in a full recognition of its weaknesses in the design of future research.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
Serendipity is not an easy word to define. Its meaning has been stretched to apply to experiences ranging from the mundane to the exceptional. Serendipity, however, is consistently associated with unexpected and positive personal, scholarly, scientific, organizational, and societal events and discoveries. Diverse serendipitous experiences share a conceptual space; therefore, what lessons can we draw from an exploration of how seren-dipity unfolds and what may influence it? This article describes an investigation of work-related serendipity. Twelve professionals and academics from a variety of fields were interviewed. The core of the semi-structured interviews focused on participants' own work-related experiences that could be recalled and discussed in depth. This research validated and augmented prior research while consolidating previous models of seren-dipity into a single model of the process of serendipity, consisting of: Trigger, Connection, Follow-up, and Valuable Outcome, and an Unexpected Thread that runs through 1 or more of the first 4 elements. Together, the elements influence the Perception of Serendipity. Furthermore , this research identified what factors relating to the individual and their environment may facilitate the main elements of serendipity and further influence its perception.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of serendipity and approaches to its study particularly in relation to information studies.
Design/methodology/approach
– The origins of the term serendipity are described and its elaboration as an exploratory and explanatory concept in science and the social sciences are outlined. The distinction between serendipity and serendipity pattern is explained and theoretical and empirical studies of both serendipity and the serendipity patterns are explored. The relationship between information encountering is described. Empirical studies of serendipity using Citation Classics and other research approaches in information studies are described.
Findings
– The discrepancy between occurrences of serendipity in studies using Citation Classics and reported serendipity in philosophy of science, research anecdotes, information encountering and information seeking by inter-disciplinary researchers is highlighted. A comparison between a process model of serendipity and serendipity as an emergent behavioural characteristic are indicates directions for future research.
Originality/value
– The paper provides and original synthesis of the theoretical and empirical literature on serendipity with particular reference to work in information studies and an indication of the methodological difficulties involved in its study.
Purpose
In “Coming across information serendipitously – Part 1: a process model” the authors identified common elements of researchers' experiences of “coming across information serendipitously”. These experiences involve a mix of unexpectedness and insight and lead to a valuable, unanticipated outcome. In this article, the authors aim to show how the elements of unexpectedness, insight and value form a framework for subjectively classifying whether a particular experience might be considered serendipitous and, if so, just how serendipitous.
Design/methodology/approach
The classification framework was constructed by analysing 46 experiences of coming across information serendipitously provided by 28 interdisciplinary researchers during critical incident interviews. “Serendipity stories” were written to summarise each experience and to facilitate their comparison. The common elements of unexpectedness, insight and value were identified in almost all the experiences.
Findings
The presence of different mixes of unexpectedness, insight and value in the interviewees' experiences define a multi‐dimensional conceptual space (which the authors call the “serendipity space”). In this space, different “strengths” of serendipity exist. The classification framework can be used to reason about whether an experience falls within the serendipity space and, if so, how “pure” or “dilute” it is.
Originality/value
The framework provides researchers from various disciplines with a structured means of reasoning about and classifying potentially serendipitous experiences.
This paper examines how history graduate students at one research university seek information and how they use the university library in their information-seeking process. The general question framing the study was whether graduate students in history demonstrate the same information-seeking behavior as established scholars. Related questions explored the use of new technologies and the reliance that history graduate students place on reference librarians and librarians in special collections.
Based on team observational analysis of a television newsroom, we argue that an analogue for the local television news organization is a factory To illustrate a routinized news organization, we propose a factory model with five steps story ideation, task assignment, gathering and structuring materials, assembly, and newscast presentation The model reflects an assembly line approach to news that limits newsworkers' involvement in the organ ization and its product The specialization, routinization and mechanization of television newswork has four observable consequences inflexibility, lack of personal investment in the product, and evaluation of newswork in productivity terms, and a mismatch between newsworkers' expectations and the reality of the news factory
Drawing on new institutionalist theory, this article presents a theory of news rules to explain the curious fact that so much of the news looks similar across news organizations, yet reporters maintain a great deal of autonomy in choosing which stories to report and how to report them. The theory hinges on a distinction between constitutive and regulative rules. Where constitutive rules tell us what the news is, regulative rules tell us how the news ought to be produced. The author argues that a better understanding of how these types of rules implicate one another in the production of news explains why the news can be both homogeneous and variable at the same time.
This article discusses the role of serendipity in qualitative research. Drawing on ideas and methodological suggestions from a set of classic and recent fieldwork accounts, the authors examine conceptions of serendipity and the ways that these conceptions become embedded in the processes by which we incorporate and embrace the temporal, relational, and analytical aspects of serendipity. The authors reject the perspective that it is the divine roll of the dice that determines serendipity and argue that serendipity is the interactive outcome of unique and contingent “mixes” of insight coupled with chance. A wide range of attempts to make sense of serendipity in sociology and anthropology are provided as exemplars of how planned insights coupled with unplanned events can potentially yield meaningful and interesting discovery in qualitative research.
Seekers of information in libraries either go through a librarian intermediary or they help themselves. When they go through librarians they must develop their questions through four levels of need, referred to here as the visceral, conscious, formalized, and compromised needs. In his pre-search interview with an information-seeker the reference librarian attempts to help him arrive at an understanding of his "compromised" need by determining: (1) the subject of his interest; (2) his motivation; (3) his personal characteristics; (4) the relationship of the inquiry to file organization; and (5) anticipated answers. The author contends that research is needed into the techniques of conducting this negotiation between the user and the reference librarian.
The article discusses the users' perspective of information seeking. A model of the information search process is presented derived from a series of five studies investigating common experiences of users in information seeking situations. The cognitive and affective aspects of the process of information seeking suggest a gap between the users' natural process of information use and the information system and intermediaries' traditional patterns of information provision. © 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Summary Serendipity means the accidental discovery of something valuable. While it is sometimes presented as an element of organizational learning, it has rarely been addressed per se by organizational scholars. We discuss and elaborate the processes associated with serendipity in the organizational context. At its core, serendipity is a process of metaphorical association - seeing something in another thing. New ways of seeing may provide the necessary ingredients for creativity and exploratory learning, which will counter organizational tendencies towards inertia and the ossification of dominant mindsets and practices.
The constant comparative method (CCM) together with theoretical sampling constitutethe core of qualitative analysis in the grounded theory approach and in other types ofqualitative research. Since the application of the method remains rather unclear, researchers do not know how to `go about' the CCM in their research practice. This study contributes to a purposeful approach of the CCM in order to systematize the analysis process and to increase the traceability and verification of the analyses. The step by step approach is derived from and illustrated with an empirical study into the experience of multiple sclerosis (MS) by patients and their spousal care providers. In this study five different steps were distinguished on the basis of four criteria: (1) the data involved and the overall analysis activities, (2) the aim, (3) the results and (4) the questions asked. It is concluded that systematization of qualitative analysis results from the researcher using a sound plan for conducting CCM regarding these four aspects.
This paper discusses incidental information acquisition in the light of psychological aspects. A theoretical introduction is followed by an account of three research projects where incidental information acquisition was related to personality traits, approaches to studying, and emotions. The respondents were grades 6–12, master's thesis, and mature library and information science (LIS) students representing an age range of 12–53 years. An energetic personality, high motivation, and positive emotionality were shown to enhance likelihood for incidental acquisition, while low motivation, stress, and insecurity reduced receptivity.
This article discusses two related techniques, critical incident technique (CIT) and explicitation, which are used in a variety of social science research settings, and critically reviews their application to studies of information behavior. The current application of both techniques is compared with Flanagan's early guidelines on the CIT and is discussed in relation to recent experience in the use of (1) the CIT in the JUSTEIS and VIVOS projects and (2) explicitation in projects concerned with text entering on interactive Web sites. The JUSTEIS project identifies trends, and reasons for those trends, in the uptake and use of electronic information services in higher education in the United Kingdom; this article examines experience gained over the first two cycles—1999 to 2000 and 2000 to 2001. The VIVOS project evaluated virtual health library services. Comparison of the experiences gained on the various projects suggests that critical incident methods could usefully be extended and enriched by some explicitation methods, to elicit the degree of evocation required for current and future studies of Internet use.
Discusses the concept of 'serendipity' in the context of information seeking from the dual viewpoints of its classical origin in literature and its more modern manifestation in the realm of problem solving and knowledge acquisition of humanities and science scholars. Reviews the literature of serendipitous information searching to discuss the utility of the notion of serendipity. Presents the analysis as part of a larger study concerning the information seeking behaviour of interdisciplinary scholars and considers the nature of serendipity in such contexts and reinterprets the notion of serendipity as a phenomenon arising from both conditions and strategies (purposive and non-purposive component) of information seeking and knowledge acquisition. Reports the results of a study, involving open-ended interviews with academic and postgraduate researchers from 100 research groups to explore their serendipitous encounters during their research. Concludes from the results that: serendipity was widely experienced among interdisciplinary researchers, serendipity may relate to the impact of new information on the research process (whether or not the information was encountered by chance), serendipity may also relate to the chance encountering of information (whether or not this information had an unexpected impact on the research), and certain attitudes and strategic decisions were perceived to be effective in exploiting serendipity when it occurred.
Through the use of the critical incident technique one may collect specific and significant behavioral facts, providing " a sound basis for making inferences as to requirements " for measures of typical performance (criteria), measures of proficiency (standard samples), training, selection and classification, job design and purification, operating procedures, equipment design, motivation and leadership (attitudes), and counseling and psychotherapy. The development, fundamental principles, present status, and uses of the critical incident technique are discussed, along with a review of studies employing the technique and suggestions for further applications. 74-item bibliography.
The acquisition of information is generally thought to be deliberately sought using a search or query mechanism or by browsing or scanning an information space. People, however, find information without seeking it through accidental, incidental or serendipitous discoveries, often in combination with other information acquisition episodes. The value of this phenomenon to an individual or an organization can be equated with the impact of serendipitous breakthroughs in science and medicine. Although largely ignored in information systems development and research, serendipitous retrieval complements querying and browsing, and together they provide a holistic, ecological approach to information acquisition and define the key approaches to a digital library. In this paper, the concept of serendipitous information retrieval is introduced and validated with data from a study of news readers, along with some approaches for how to facilitate it.
What room for accident in history? Explaining big changes by small events
News organizations and routines
- T Vlad
- L B Becker