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Exploring the Information Worlds of Older Persons During Disasters
Author(s) -
Pang Natalie,
Karanasios Stan,
Anwar Misita
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.24294
Subject(s) - natural disaster , disaster research , identification (biology) , natural (archaeology) , information behavior , older people , psychology , internet privacy , public relations , gerontology , geography , political science , medicine , computer science , library science , botany , archaeology , meteorology , biology
While there is a growing body of research on information behavior during nonroutine events such as natural disasters, the research has largely neglected older persons as a specific group despite their identification as a demographic that suffers disproportionately during disasters. To address this gap, this article reports on the study of the information behavior and related activities of older persons during natural disasters. Based on a qualitative study, we draw on the theory of information worlds to study the key activities of preparing, responding, and recovering from disasters. The article contributes to the information behavior literature by developing a more informed understanding of both the interrelationship between the information worlds and activities of older persons, and how older persons seek and share information during disasters.