Library and Information Science

This review examines studies and analyses of ‘information media’ as written documents, published mainly in original articles after 1980s. Both (1) analyses which seek to identify ‘information’, ‘content’, or ‘meaning’ of information media, and (2) studies which concern the information phenomena, are reviewed.

There are two aspects to be reviewed; (1) what kinds of methods are used and what are the results, (2) how ‘information media’ are approached and represented. The review, thus, outlines several methods (Chapter 2), and research schemes and approaches that underlie in the methods (Chapter 3).

In Chapter 2, content analysis, subject analysis, linguistic analysis (propositional analysis, FSP linguistics, semantics and grammar, pragmatics), discourse analysis, structural analysis, sociological analysis, and cognitive psychological analysis are examined. In Chapter 3, among the approaches which might underlie those methods, semiotic approach, practical approach, ‘process’ approach, structural and functional approaches, and ‘speech act theory’ and ‘language game’ approaches, are discussed.

Two directions in studies and analyses of ‘information media’ are recognized. Those are, (1) the direction which seeks better and more effective settings for information media, and hence regards that the analyses should contribute to decision making, and (2) the direction which seeks to find the phenomena surrounding information media. Finally some future directions are proposed. It is necessary to seek new approaches, among which ‘information media’ can be studied multidirectionally, new meanings permanently arrising from them are not to be eliminated, or what they mean to those people in the context of actually using them can be describable.