Narratives of new media in Scottish households: the evolution of a framework of inquiry

The authors describe a study of the social dynamics of new media in Scottish households. The evolving project drew on dialogues with multiple household members elicited in group conversations. This approach to interviews captured different and conflicting points of view, a feature shared with certain social approaches to systems design. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that there are recurrent narratives and behavioral genres across households (and across sample groups), and that these reflect tactics, stratagems, and plans by means of which respondents navigate social space. The authorsʹ approach contrasts with prevailing “needs and uses” models in information science, in offering a methodological framework based on group narrative and genre analysis that contributes to a theory of social informatics in the household.