This paper begins the task of laying the conceptual foundations for a value-critical and paradigm-critical approach to information policy argued in a 1996 Journal of Information Science article by Ian Rowlands as necessary for advancement of the field as an area of scholarship. It commences with a brief overview of the history and contemporary context of national information policy before moving to an analysis of three fundamental concepts in information policy: (i) information, (ii) policy and (iii) information policy. The paper concludes that there is a significant lack of clarity in the information policy field regarding the meaning of these concepts. There are, however, frameworks in information studies and public policy studies which can be brought together to provide input for development of an intellectually rigorous field of information policy. Some of these frameworks and how they might be applied to information policy are described. A second paper in the series is foreshadowed with an indication that it will compare the scope of information policy and policy studies research and explore methodologies for value-critical and paradigm-critical approaches to information policy.
The paper continues an analysis of the field of information policy as a field of scholarship. The first part of the analysis was reported in an earlier paper and was linked to the call of Ian Rowlands for 'value-critical and paradigm-critical' approaches in information policy. The paper begins by comparing research in information policy with the output of the field of policy studies. It concludes that there are substantial gaps in the range of information policy research relative to the scope of policy studies. The gaps are located in areas where value-and paradigm-critical approaches could have most impact in taking the field of information policy to intellectual maturity. The implications of adopting value-and paradigm-critical approaches to scholarship are explored within the context of the new interpretative social sciences which are dominating much of contemporary scholarship. Some approaches and frameworks from the new methodologies which are seen as particularly relevant to information policy are described. A case is made for extending the range of research paradigms employed in information policy research in the interests of strengthening its currently inadequate intellectual foundations.
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