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A Critical Reinterpretation of Dervin’s Sense-Making Theory as Communication Theory

  • Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
  • Abbr : JKLISS
  • 2022, 53(3), pp.193-214
  • DOI : 10.16981/kliss.53.3.202209.193
  • Publisher : Korean Library And Information Science Society
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Library and Information Science
  • Received : August 23, 2022
  • Accepted : September 17, 2022
  • Published : September 30, 2022

Park Seong Woo 1 Hong Soram 1

1광주대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Sense-Making Theory gives persuasive power to information seeking behavior while acknowledging the diversity of subjects. It is being used as a theory and methodology to explain the phenomenon of information seeking in various temporal and spatial contexts related to the communication of individuals’ inner realms, face-to-face, organization, and mass communication. However, it is not to be a theory to explain the information seeking behavior of a group in that it explains the individual epistemological interpretation of the subjects. Also, the purpose of the theory was to establish a receiver-centered communication theory that constructs sense-making by itself, away from the receiver who unilaterally accepts the sender’s information from the perspective of communication theory. However, Dervin accepted the existence of object information without explaining the relationship between the recipient’s external information and the receiver. Owing to the establishing his concept of information following the Popper(1972)’s world concept, its object of observation is not World Ⅲ(objective content of thought), but the process of sense making in which World Ⅱ (psychological world) receives information generated in World Ⅲ. In this context, Dervin’s theory is not to explain the communication behavior at a group level.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.