This area encompasses perspectives that share a primary focus on problems arising from the ways in which information and information technologies are implicated in social, political, and cultural processes. Current research activities include:
- Theoretical problems in information studies: philosophy, ethics, epistemology
- Documentation
- Information policy
- Legal aspects of information
- Political economy of information
- Information and social justice
- Literacy and reading
- Information professions and work
- Issues of diversity in LIS (gender, race, sexual identity, etc.)
- Information users, uses, seeking, behaviours, and practices
- Information in everyday life
- Health information
- Information and social networks
- Libraries and other information-related organizations, their cultures, and their politics
Although research and teaching specializations may belong to both areas, the following faculty members work primarily in this area:
Dyer-Witheford , Farber, Frohmann , Harris, Hill, Johnson , Leckie , McKechnie , McKenzie, Pyati, Quan-Haase , Ross , Rothbauer , Rubin , Wathen , Xiao.
In considering potential chief supervisors, students should be careful to determine that the faculty member of choice has the appropriate supervisory status.
Updated 07/07/2009