The role of narratives in collaborative information seeking

Abstract

There has been a growing interest within the CSCW community to understand how actors in organizations collaboratively seek information. This focus had led to the emergence of the research area of collaborative information seeking (CIS). Despite an increasing number of conceptual as well as technical studies related to CIS, many fundamental questions still remain unanswered. For example, researchers within this space have argued that CIS goes beyond two or more individuals posing "question and answers" to each other in their attempt to seek the needed information. If CIS is not just about "question and answers", then what does it exactly constitute? We propose that one way to answer these questions is to conceptualize CIS as being constituted through, and orchestrated via, "narratives". In this research note, we elaborate upon the notion of "narratives", and talk about the potential usefulness of such a conceptualization for furthering CIS research and advancing CSCW scholarship.