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Information Encountering on Social Q&A Sites: A Diary Study of the Process

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Book cover Transforming Digital Worlds (iConference 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10766))

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Abstract

Social Q&A sites, which enable information seeking through the direct interaction between human askers and answerers, demonstrate the environmental characteristics that conduce to information encountering (IE). The purpose of this study is to reveal how IE occurs in this specific context. A diary study based on the critical incident technique (CIT) was conducted, and 108 IE incidents were collected from 83 users of Zhihu, a representative social Q&A site. The diary questionnaire was developed according to three existing general IE process models. The content analysis of these incidents engendered a context-specific model in which the micro-process of IE consists of noticing a stimulus, (stopping), examining the content, and capturing information, and is extended by including both the foreground and follow-up activities. This study not only enriches the understanding of human information behavior, but also provides useful implications for the design of social Q&A sites. The successful attempt to introduce CIT-based diary study to IE research also shows methodological significance.

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Acknowledgement

This research has been made possible through the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants No. 71774125 and No. 71420107026.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Tingting Jiang, Chaojian Zhang, Zhezhe Li, Chang Fan & Jiaqi Yang

  2. Center for Studies of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Tingting Jiang

Authors
  1. Tingting Jiang
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  2. Chaojian Zhang
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  3. Zhezhe Li
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  4. Chang Fan
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  5. Jiaqi Yang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tingting Jiang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Gobinda Chowdhury

  2. Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Julie McLeod

  3. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Val Gillet

  4. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Peter Willett

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Jiang, T., Zhang, C., Li, Z., Fan, C., Yang, J. (2018). Information Encountering on Social Q&A Sites: A Diary Study of the Process. In: Chowdhury, G., McLeod, J., Gillet, V., Willett, P. (eds) Transforming Digital Worlds. iConference 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10766. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_52

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_52

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78104-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78105-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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