Reading Questions 4—Chatman’s Small World Theories

When reading Chatman’s article you want to think about the following issues:

· Make sure you can explain the Small World approach and the theories developed by Chatman

· To which basic concepts introduced in class is it most relevant?

· Which new basic concepts does it introduce (there are quite a few here)?

· How do these new concepts relate to the ones we have already discussed?

· How would the Small World approach explain the difference between:

• Information want
• Information demand
• Information need

· Keeping the Small World approach in mind, speculate which types of information will trigger:

• Information searching
• Information surfing
• Information encountering

· Hoe does the information system help the user, according to the Small World approach?

· What are the implications of the Small World approach to system design?

We will discuss these issues in class