Purpose -Working toward a symbolic interactionist understanding of information provision by multiple agencies responding to crisis situations, in this paper the authors aim to examine mandated information provision on the part of US law enforcement to survivors of intimate partner violence. Design/methodology/approach -The authors conducted a detailed content analysis of 1,793 documents supplied by local law enforcement agencies from over 700 cities from all 50 US states. Documents were coded within a framework that identified 18 information elements corresponding to four emergent situations commonly found within the survivors' small world, as well as codes to note level of responsibility expressed by law enforcement and affective tone. Findings -Law enforcement expressed the greatest responsibility for those information elements related to their immediate purview -generally, how to engage with the police themselves in an initial crisis situation. However, information related to community social services, related to "later" survivor situations was included in the documents almost as frequently, but with less expressed direct responsibility. Originality/value -Agencies providing information to survivors of crisis situations are frequently working within an environment that is bounded by overlapping governmental and private actors who may have different norms, agendas, and priorities. Developing a symbolic interactionist model that allows for the co-existence of these different approaches, and articulates their interaction, can help IS professionals support these actors who may be struggling with minimal preparation for information interactions.

Purpose -Working towards a broader understanding of information provision by agencies responding to crisis situations, the aim of this paper is to examine mandated information provision on the part of law enforcement to survivors of intimate partner violence at the scene of an emergency response. Design/methodology/approach -The authors conducted a detailed content analysis of 1,851 documents supplied by local law enforcement agencies from 755 US cities. A 29-element coding framework was developed to identify five key content areas of information: the nature of abuse, survivor norms, police information, legal options, and community resources. Findings -The best represented content areas related to police information, legal options, and community resources. Information on the nature of abuse and survivor hood was dramatically less well represented. Law enforcement understandably privileges that information which involves immediate, concrete action and within which the officer may have a responsibility (for example, to obtain a temporary restraining order). Correlations between city size and the presence of information elements were minimal, while several significant correlations based on region were noted. Originality/value -This is the first nationwide study of the information that police are required to provide to survivors of intimate partner violence. Understanding the features of this seldom-discussed yet vital interaction can help IS professionals support practices and protocols of other agencies responding to crisis situations who may be struggling with minimal preparation for information interactions.

Health care practitioners rely on access to relevant and up-to-date medical information in order to effectively treat their patients. One efficient, low-cost avenue for such information is online collections, but certain regions lack the information and communication technologies (ICT) necessary for widespread and reliable access to online resources. The characteristics of existing ICT infrastructure in many developing countries are not well understood. This research synthesis focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), an area with low levels of ICT infrastructure. It presents a synthesis of statistical analyses and a review across disciplines of information published on the state of ICT and health information access in SSA. An overview of the existing knowledge allowed us to identify the salient features of this particular ICT environment, and informed the development of a survey for SSA healthcare professionals. The synthesis and preliminary results from our survey suggest that Internet connectivity remains highly unreliable in Sub-Saharan Africa and that mobile devices provide the most reliable technology for health care providers to carry out their work.

No abstract

This study is based on a secondary analysis of data from a survey of U.S. adults related to informational media use, trust, and community engagement. The authors were interested in determining if the act of contributing to online information sources (blogs, in this case) was correlated with higher expressions of trust in "alternative" or citizen-journalism sites. While familiarity with these sites has often been shown to correlate with higher trust measures, isolating participatory behavior from reading/use behavior is a particular question that has not been much addressed in the literature. Several survey responses related to online behaviors and attitudes were examined, and contributor users were found to be more likely to rate alternative media sites (with usercontributed content) as credible than other users. This effect was consistent even when controlling for demographic factors or otherwise generally advanced online information use. Content contributor users were also found to score slightly higher on measures of off-line social capital. This conclusion suggests an area for future research into the norms and motivations behind the development of collaborative information resources, and better analysis of the role of trust or credibility in explaining why some types of online resources (wikis, blogs, digital libraries, etc.) succeed and flourish, while others do not.