Abstract

Mobilised opinion and social media have become a valuable source of information for organisations and individuals in operational and strategic decision making processes, such as marketing campaigns, product monitoring and development, search for new markets or the improvement of customer relations. The emergence of social media monitoring companies has brought a new job market for information professionals, to the extent that this information has to be collected and processed, and new automated monitoring systems have to be developed. This article outlines a process of recovery and treatment of mobilised opinion on the internet as a source for social climate analysis by organisations. The specific characteristics and problems of this type of opinion are highlighted, which points to the need for the participation of human agents in the development of the process.

Abstract

Insights from the recent wealth of popular books on neuroscience are offered to suggest a strengthening of theory in information science. Information theory has traditionally neglected the human dimension in favour of ‘scientific’ approaches often derived from the Shannon-Weaver model. Neuroscientists argue in excitingly fresh ways from the evidence of case studies, non-intrusive experimentation and the measurements that can be obtained from technologies that include electroencephalography, positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG). The way in which the findings of neuroscience intersect with ideas such as those of Kahneman on fast and slow thinking and Csikszentmihalyi on flow, is tentatively explored as lines of connection with information science. It is argued that the beginnings of a theoretical underpinning for current web-based information searching, as opposed to established information retrieval methods, can be drawn from this. It is proposed that collaborative research programmes between neuroscientists and information scientists could be extremely revealing.