Information Encountering In The Context Of Social Search

Information encountering is an important supplementary of active information acquisition mode.With the rapid development of Internet and mobile communication technology,its value is gradually recognized by scholars.The context of social search,which emphasizes human intelligence and participation,creates favorable conditions for the occurrence of information encountering,but until now,no research has been done to discuss Information encountering in this context.And as a supplement,this paper regards Information encountering in the context of social search as the object of study,and explores its occurrence mechanism and influencing factors through empirical research.On the basis of previous studies,this paper first analyzes the relationship between information encountering,social search and information behavior,as well as the discriminant method of information encountering in the context of social search,and completes the preliminary discussion of the object.Based on this,combining interview method and grounded theory,this study constructs an analytical framework of information encountering in the context of social search,in which:(1)Encountering opportunity,session switching,and encountering handling constitute the encountering process module.(2)The features of platform,search situation,encountering information and the features of users,which include the instant mentality,platform usage habits,phenomenon cognition and information literacy,jointly affect the occurrence and treatment process of information encountering.(3)The features of platform will regulate the users’ platform usage habits,and the features of search situation will regulate users’ instant mentality.(4)Information encountering experience can feed back on users and change their features.Then,this paper analyzes the process of information encountering in detail and constructs a model,and discusses its influence factors.Finally,on the basis of the above research,this paper puts forward some suggestions to social search service providers,information literacy educators and individual users.