Journal article
Learning to search and learning to slow down or “The quick and the dead”
Journal of Documentation, Vol.80(6), pp.1475-1493
2024
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the temporal dynamics shaping our understanding of search in education and the role language plays in legitimising these dynamics. It critiques the way online search is discursively constructed using home-education as a case study, and problematises how particular discourses are privileged, whom this privileging serves, as well as the likely consequences.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as its methodological framework. Search and discursive practices were recorded during observations, search-tasks and interviews with five Australian home-educating families. Discursive features from the Google interface were also analysed.
Findings
A discursive privileging of hasty search practices was identified. This was found alongside largely ineffectual search, but participants continued to discursively represent search as fast and easy. The study highlights the complex co-option of discourses surrounding online search that privilege particular temporal and commercial landscapes.
Originality/value
This study contributes new knowledge regarding time as a context for understanding search behaviours, locating the perception of temporal scarcity in education within broader discursive and social structures. To date, no studies are found which investigate the temporal factors surrounding search in home-education. Increasing global reliance upon online search means the findings have broad significance, as does the proliferation of home-education induced by COVID-19. Additionally, while much work problematises the power search engines wield to privilege certain discourses, few investigate the day-to-day discursive practices of searchers affording Google and others this power.
Details
- Title
- Learning to search and learning to slow down or “The quick and the dead”
- Authors
- Renee Morrison (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Education and Tertiary Access
- Publication details
- Journal of Documentation, Vol.80(6), pp.1475-1493
- Publisher
- Emerald Publishing Limited
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.1108/JD-03-2024-0067
- ISSN
- 1758-7379
- Organisation Unit
- School of Education and Tertiary Access
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991046177902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
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InCites Highlights
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- Web Of Science research areas
- Computer Science, Information Systems
- Information Science & Library Science
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Source: InCites