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Using Phenomenographic Methods
to Support Political Information Use
ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2016
Lauren Smith and David McMenemy
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
@walkyouhome
Research Aim
To explore how young people use information to mediate political information to develop
knowledge to become informed citizens
CC William Clifford https://flic.kr/p/4CJCo
Data Collection
14-15 year olds
School in South Yorkshire, England
23 interviews and 3 focus groups
Not yet allowed to vote
Do learn about politics
Citizens with rights now,
not just in futureCC Robert Schrader
https://flic.kr/p/dQjoPS
Analysis
• Phenomenographic studies do not use
predetermined hypotheses or coding
categories
• Examined focus group and interview
transcripts in their entirety
• Identified common themes and
theoretical concepts, coded iteratively
as they emerged
• Identified similarities and differences in
the ways participants experienced
political information CC Dean Hochman https://flic.kr/p/FwJTRQ
FindingsSources and conceptions of political information
Sources of
Political Information
Outcome Space
• Levels
• Categories of
description
• Structure of
awareness
• Dimensions of
variation
Dimensions of Variation
Production of information
Evaluation of information
Political information
and agency
Conception of politics
CC Torley https://flic.kr/p/fuSi5
Production of Information
Category of
DescriptionOne Two Three Four Five Six
Production
of
information
Not perceived as
being part of a
system of production
or the individual’s
own repertoire of
information
PI external
to individual
- not
processed
Individual is part of
the process of the
production of new
information
Active
sharing &
production
aiming for
social
change
Evaluation of Information
Category of
DescriptionOne Two Three Four Five Six
Evaluation of
information
PI sources & their
content are not
evaluated
Superficial; PI
taken at face
value
Evaluation of
basic
credibility
PI is subject to
critique & evaluation
Political Information and Agency
Category of
DescriptionOne Two Three Four Five Six
Information
and agency
PI not connected to
individuals’
conceptions of own
agency
Superficial
acknowledgement
of PI & agency
relationship
Active use
of PI to help
develop
(perhaps
illusory)
‘sense’ of
agency
PI viewed as
necessary to
create
conditions for
agency
Engagement
with PI
connected to
personal action
Conception of Politics
Politics as formal processes
Politics as current events reported in media
Politics as affecting the individual
Politics as social issues
Politics as all issues affecting public life
Conceptions of Politics
Interested in social topics
Dislike of politicians and ‘politics’
Concerns about ‘key’ issues
Not confident about knowledge
Don’t trust young people to vote
CC The Lilac Bonsai https://flic.kr/p/LieJKe
Categories of Description
Categories of description represent
the different conceptions participants express about the
research phenomenon; a ‘conception’ being a ‘qualitatively distinct manner in which the subjects
were found to voice the way they thought’ about the phenomenon
(Marton and Booth 1997, p.36)
Different Ways of Experiencing Political Information
1) A range of sources of information;
2) Something which is encountered out of context;
3) Something to fill a knowledge gap;
4) Something through which to gain meaning and context;
5) Something relevant to one’s own life;
6) Something which can help to achieve social change.
CC poppy https://flic.kr/p/9eHaoG
1) Political information as a range of
sources of information
Most simplistic way of experiencing
political information
Political information and information
sources as external to the self
Politics related to Westminster politics and removed from individuals’ lives
Negative attitudes towards participating in politics connected to lack of belief that
young people have capacity to make responsible decisions
CC Loes van Voorthuijsen
https://flic.kr/p/bcCZwX
• Broad range of information sources (Diehm and Lupton 2014)
• Information horizon (Sonnenwald 1999)
“Well I know there are lots of places I could find stuff out, I just don’t really care about politics so I don’t really use them myself.” (P14) “Every morning they stick
on the news to see what's going on. I'm not bothered about politics. I don't care about who's going to be the next Prime Minister or something.” (P12)
“No I don’t think we should be able to vote at 16. You can’t trust us to do the right thing! When you’re 16 you're in education. At 18, you're in control and you know what you're talking about, and you can have a view. Politics is to do with education and you're still in education.” (P23)
2) Political information as something
encountered out of context
Information encountered passively
and actively
Outwith specific and
acknowledged political information need
Information not actively used for any particular purpose
Political information has no
relevance to their lives or contexts CC Gerard Stolk https://flic.kr/p/qgomeh
• Knowledge base (Yates 2013)
• Information landscape (Smith 2010) • Pressure to be informed (Curnalia and Mermer 2013)
• Objective and decontextualized (Bruce 2008)• Passive absorption (Bates 2002)
“My mum always has the radio on in the car…it’s not really anything to do with me. I don’t get most of it. Some of it probably sinks in though.” (P15)
“I watch the news if it’s on TV, like in the morning. I don’t usually know what it’s about but I try to keep up to date, it’s quite interesting.” (P1)
“I don't know what it was. This woman had to stand up for so many hours when she...I don't
know what it was all about. She had to stand up. She wouldn't
sit down or something, while there was this big government
meeting or something. It was fun to watch but I wasn’t sure
what was going on.” (P8)
3) Political information as something to fill a knowledge gap
• Deliberate acquisition of information to
form an opinion and fill a gap• Information as external object to meet an
internal need• Engagement with information beneficial
but not essential
• Educational and real-world outcomes• Political knowledge as a commodity
• Not conceptualised as being part of a system
• Evaluated based on existing
predispositions and assumptions CC Richard Fraser https://flic.kr/p/7xUJy1
“If I want to find out more about
something I’ve heard on the news I’ll Google it, just to find out
the basic facts so I know what’s going on.” (P26 FG3)
“I can see the value of learning
about politics but I wouldn’t want to do it at school unless I could do
it as a GCSE.” (P8 FG1)
“I hate it when my Grandad comes out with something…and I
know he’s wrong, but I don’t have the facts to back myself up…If I could say…that’s not how many people are benefits
cheats…because I knew the facts, that’d be good.” (P7 FG2)
• Disposable information seeking (Mawby et al 2015)
• Principle of least effort (Shenton and Dixon 2004) • Rational PLE behaviour (Agosto and Hughes-Hassell 2006)
• Regurgitation of information (Smith 2010)
4) Political information as something through
which to gain meaning and context
• Potentially useful resources for
sense-making• Develop opinions, beliefs, attitudes,
understanding• Easy to manage amount of information • Does not challenge existing worldviews
• Awareness that information production is a process and can be subject to
critical analysis• Develop a ‘sense’ of political agency
(albeit with existing biases)CC Robin https://flic.kr/p/oF2Ff
“He [the sociology teacher] always brings up things in the news,
like how does that fit in with what we're doing, like family or youth or something.” (P15 FG1)
“The newspapers can be
very biased because the editor or whoever it is who’s
written that particular article writes it, so they put their own view into it.” (P7 FG2)
“I wouldn’t want to be able
to vote because I don’t know enough. I mean,
what if I voted and I voted for the wrong party - the ones who lost?” (P8 FG1)
• Transformative lens (Lupton 2008)
• Information as subjective (Bruce 2008)• Deep approach to learning (Andretta 2007)
5) Political information as something relevant to one’s own life
• Actively use information to develop a ‘sense’
of political agency, taking an interest
• Understanding the “right” political views
• Broader ‘landscape’ of politics
• Used to develop understanding of politics
and society
• Individual part of the production of new
information
• Critical assessment of information sources
• Connection between information from
academic lessons and everyday life
acknowledged CC Mathias Liebing https://flic.kr/p/2FEBT6
“It kind of annoys me, the fact that the Prime Minister is usually someone who's been brought up middle class, that's never had to pay for anything, so they don't quite know how our parents feel, they don't quite know what it's like to work and have to earn and
stuff like that.” (P18 FG2)
“I think the only time
I care about politics, is if it affects me or
my family. If it doesn't, I have no
reason to care
about it.” (P23 FG2)
“Sometimes I think I know about something but…I’ll
hear something on the news and it makes me realise
there’s more to it…I learn from that…when I’m talking
to my friends…I’ll tell them it’s different.” (P27 FG2)
“I think it’s important to be thinking about things now because even though I can’t vote yet, I do want to. So I need to know what I think about things.” (P3)
• Interacting with others for growth, learning and understanding
(Diehm and Lupton 2012)
6) Political information as something
that can help to achieve social change
• Developing consciousness of structures of power and systems of production
• Information sharing and production with view to enacting social change
• Production of political opinion• Assessing reliability of information • Understanding impact of bias,
misinformation and disinformation• Connecting engagement with political
information to action: being informed enough to become involved
• Focus on application of information for social change
CC Kunal Shah https://flic.kr/p/aDCHnx
“On Tumblr you’ll see a picture
and it’ll come with a little caption about it, and then
everybody will talk about what they think about it, and they can have a debate on it…
And there’ll be different things that they talk about,
like…feminism and stuff I hadn’t learnt about before.” (P9)
“I like going to village meetings even
though I’m the youngest one there because it’s where you find out local
things that you don’t hear about , even in The Free Press. I like to know
what I can do about things, how I
can help. Like the other day, with the protest against the building work,
they were saying what you can write in letters to the councillors and that.”
(P26)
• Learning as a social responsibility (Lupton 2008)
Levels of the outcome space
• Hierarchical in structure
• Not a representation of developmental phases
of political activism• Representation of the
different ways
participants experience and use political
information for knowledge or action
Research outcomes focus on how the variation of experiences and different
ways of thinking about a
phenomenon can be used as ‘a
powerful way of seeing’, which in turn
can be supported by educators to become ‘powerful ways of acting.’
(Marton and Tsui 2004, p.8)
Implications for Practice
CC Antony Bennison https://flic.kr/p/8So1j7
Developing More Complex Ways of Understanding
Understanding these experiences can help us
influence the degree of
complexity with which young
people use information to help
them form political opinions and participate in democracy.
CC Martin Fisch https://flic.kr/p/9bUJEX
Navigating Political Information
Misinformation and disinformation
(Fallis 2014; Lewandowsky 2012)
Lies (Grice 1989)
Spin (Isaac and Bridewell 2014)
Bullshit (Black 1983; Frankfurt 2005)
Restriction, filtering and censorship (Fallis 2014)
CC Thomas Hawk https://flic.kr/p/PVNng
“Everything on the Internet looks like it might
be true…
In this political season
we’ve seen you just say
stuff. So everything suddenly becomes
contested.”
Barack Obama, Frontiers Conference,
Pittsburgh, 13th October 2016
Engaging Young People: Room for Experts?
“Britain has had enough of experts.”
Michael Gove, Sky News, 3rd June 2016
• Most frequently cited source of political
information: trusted people
• Many young people don’t feel adequately
equipped to navigate political information to
make informed choices
• They want guidance and scaffoldingCC Victoria Pickering https://flic.kr/p/7CCdmo
Finding out about:• Where young people get information from
• How they assess authority
Helps us:
• Understand behaviour and decisions• Develop theory
• Design effective interventions
Supporting Citizenship
CC kkimphotography
https://flic.kr/p/dVXJ8W
• Participants have opportunity to voice experiences, concerns
and attitudes
• Voices of all participants given
weight
• Theoretical framework for understanding young people’s
political information
experiences
• Pedagogically valuable
• Supports political participation
Phenomenography in Practice
CC Stilgherrian https://flic.kr/p/8ybUYU
Pedagogical Value of Phenomenographic Research
Phenomenographic interviews and
focus groups, or even casual discussion may help pupils to
become conscious of underlying assumptions and biases that inform their worldviews and information
behaviours, many of which may be limiting individuals’ capacity to
learn and develop criticality.
CC Duncan C https://flic.kr/p/7PPCWB
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Thank You@walkyouhome
University of Strathclyde profile
Full ASIS&T paper (Under experiencing political information)
slideshare.com/laurensmith
CC Jean-Pierre Dalbéra https://flic.kr/p/6N3J2n
