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Toward an understanding of fiction and information behavior
Author(s) -
Broussard Ramona,
Doty Philip
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
proceedings of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2373-9231
DOI - 10.1002/pra2.2016.14505301066
Subject(s) - reading (process) , entertainment , literary fiction , information behavior , techno thriller , fiction theory , popular fiction , sci fi , inclusion (mineral) , fantasy , sociology , psychology , computer science , literature , social science , art , literary criticism , visual arts , linguistics , philosophy , human–computer interaction
The study of information science and technology has expanded over the years to include more kinds of people, more kinds of behavior, more methods, and a broader inclusion of fields. There is at least one area, however, where very few information studies scholars have tread: entertainment, particularly fiction. Yet many fields indicate that information studies should consider fiction. In this paper, we discuss how fiction is an informative genre and reasons why information studies scholars have mostly ignored fiction. We also identify potential research directions for studying fiction. We provide a summary of works about fiction and information, discuss motivations for expanding (and not expanding) information studies beyond what it is and has been, and we use an exploratory study of one example of a fiction‐interaction – reading Young Adult novels – to illustrate how fiction is important to information behavior.