Risky (information) business: an informational risk research agenda
ISSN: 0022-0418
Article publication date: 14 February 2023
Issue publication date: 25 August 2023
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this conceptual paper is to suggest that the growing sociocultural theorisation of risk calls for a more robust research focus on the role that information and in particular, information literacy, plays in mediating hazards and danger.
Design/methodology/approach
Starting by tracing how information has been conceptualised in relation to risk through technoscientific, cognitive and sociocultural lenses, the paper then focuses on emerging sociocultural understandings of risk to present a research agenda for a renewed sociocultural exploration of how risk is shaped through the enactment of information literacy.
Findings
The paper identifies and examines how information literacy shapes four key aspects of risk, including risk perception, risk management, risk-taking and “at-risk” populations. These four aspects are further connected through broader themes of learning, identity, work and power, which form the basis of the sociocultural risk research agenda.
Originality/value
This paper is the first study bringing together the many understandings related to how risk is informed and establishes risk as a key area of interest within information literacy research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme, SRG2021\211338.
Citation
Hicks, A. (2023), "Risky (information) business: an informational risk research agenda", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 79 No. 5, pp. 1147-1163. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2022-0198
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited