Understanding Users’ Informational Constructs via a Triadic Method Approach: A Case Study

Abstract

This chapter presents a case study of how “informational constructs”, based on Kelly (A theory of personality, Norton, New York, 1955/1963), contribute to the knowledge building process of users making sense of what they see on a screen. Through a combined formal and empirical research approach, our study sought to understand the informational constructs of 20 viewers who had experienced a snippet from a film. The methodological framework of this study developed two novel features. First, there was a symbolic formalization of the similarity-dissimilarity logic of informational constructs. Second, this formalization was combined with a qualitative methodology in order to operationalize, in part, the “General Definition of Information” framework of Floridi (The philosophy of information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011b). The research method used in the study featured a custom-made interview template that allowed users to document their informational constructs. This was done by progressively filling in a triadic grid to crystallize both the scenic and the interpretative aspects of the snippet as a sense-making experience. Based on an axiomatico-inductive approach, the research findings show that the viewers’ informational constructs focused on the background passers-by of the film as a form of epistemological “touchstone” (hypothesis #1). An extensive analysis of one of the interviews conducted reveals how the background features of the film represented an interrelating “sounding board” in the viewer’s knowledge building process (hypothesis #2). The final discussion highlights the importance of the novel concept of interconnecting “resonances” in the emergence of informational constructs.