Internet and the lifeworld: updating Schutz's theory of mutual knowledge

Abstract

Purpose

The paper seeks to understand the formation of mutual knowledge in the online world using the phenomenological framework that Alfred Schutz and his associates constructed for the examination of the lifeworld.

Design/methodology/approach

This study consists of three parts: reviewing Schutz's theory of the constitution of intersubjectivity in the lifeworld; extending Schutz's analysis to the acquisition of mutual knowledge in the online world; and applying the extended version of Schutz's theory to the booming blogosphere on the internet.

Findings

Schutz divided the contemporaneous lifeworld into two realms – consociates and mere contemporaries. Schutz maintained that people came to know one another based on shared life experiences through “growing older together” in the realm of consociates and based on objectified schemes of interpretation through “ideal typification” in the realm of mere contemporaries. This article extends Schutz's analysis to human interaction on the internet, showing that in the emergent online world people become mutually familiar based on the biographic narratives they recount to one another through self‐disclosure. Mutual knowledge obtained online also contributes to the total stock of knowledge people come to accumulate in an increasingly distanciated lifeworld.

Originality/value

This article argues that the spread of the internet has changed the structure of the lifeworld Schutz depicted, and such changes have produced ways of getting to know others that were previously impossible. In light of those changes, this article seeks to update Schutz's theory of mutual knowledge.

Citation

Zhao, S. (2007), "Internet and the lifeworld: updating Schutz's theory of mutual knowledge", Information Technology & People, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 140-160. https://doi.org/10.1108/09593840710758059