Information science: The study of postmodern knowledge usage

Abstract

There is a lot of discussion about paradigms. Most of the approaches seem to have the same basic structure: Assuming a fixed problem and stating solutions. The alternative view would be to look at the deeper structural problem which could be illustrated by comparison with actors dealing with knowledge under conditions of a change in the role of knowledge. This is observed in four dimensions related to the development of sets of technologies: depersonalization and communication technologies, believability and observation technologies, fragmentation and presentation technologies, and rationalization and information technologies. This change is furthermore supported by the phenomenon of “informatization.” If information science considers itself to be that science, it has to learn that such a science would be established (together with some others like ecology) as a prototype of a new or postmodern science. Postmodern science is not like classical science, driven by the search for complete understanding of how the world works, but by the need to develop strategies to solve in particular those problems which have been caused by classical sciences and technologies. Such a science has to face a new theoretical situation for which three approaches are envisaged: (a) development of basic models by redefinition of broad scientific concepts (e.g., “system,” leading to the concept of actor, “communication,” leading to the concept of complexity reduction); (b) scientific reformulation of inter-concepts, that is, concepts that are that familiar and common in that they are not yet scientifically worked out as such (e.g., “knowledge”, “image”); and (c) interweaving of models and inter-concepts.