| While critical race frameworks are not new developments in academia, having been influential in fields such as Law and Education, they have not been widely applied in research, pedagogy and practice within Information Studies (IS). This dissertation proposes a new theoretical concept, critical race information theory (CRIT) that is grounded in the notion that every aspect of information including its form, use, structure, and infrastructure can be analyzed in order to understand the ways in which it reflects and represents the beliefs, values, practices, and politics of our society; and how in turn such dynamics affect individuals and groups that are traditionally positioned in society as marginalized or disenfranchised.;Driven by its mission statement, and in order to develop a methodology that is capable of identifying and confronting social bias disciplinarily, interdisciplinarily and transdisciplinarily, CRIT is constructed in this dissertation using a two-phase process. First, the external phase builds upon the interdisciplinary scholarship of critical race theory (CRT). The internal phase encompasses the actual construction of the theory, which consists of; (1) developing research questions to guide the study, (2) establishing a research setting, (3) discussing the use of a case study as the research method, (4) explaining the research instruments used, which, included include the records continuum model (RCM) and the critical race tools, (5) establishing the procedures to gather and analyze the data, (6) contextualizing the cases that emerged through the initial data review, (7) selecting a specific emergent case for a more in-depth analysis, (8) analyzing the selected case utilizing the research instruments, (9) administering a post-analysis assessment, and (10) discussing opportunities to further develop CRIT.;Using the U.S. Bureau of Census' questionnaires and instructions from the 22 decennial censuses (1790-2000) as a case study, this research examines a case that focuses on the dynamics of ethno-bias against Mexican communities within the U.S. from 1925 to 1945, and demonstrates how multiple components of the IS discourse, such as information institutions, information needs, information processes, information products, and information objects individually and in combination contribute to the disenfranchisement of outgroups. |
