Data analysis

Data sources include field observations, interviews and institutional documents. The interpretive paradigm, discourse analysis and content analysis techniques are used for this research (Berger and Luckman, 2014; Burrell and Morgan, 1991). Activity Theory is used as an analytical tool for conceptual data analysis.

As a first stage, the field observations from the pilot studies are used. The notes and videos/photos taken during observations are analysed. The ICT systems and institutional departmental structure are introduced during the observations. The notes are taken during the observations for further use. The main objective is for the researcher to comprehend the phenomena through field observations and to structure the interview schedule. The details are discussed in the pilot study sections for both the disaster management and news-production contexts.

The researcher establishes a relationship between the departments, the tasks carried out and the information-related tasks as well as information behaviour, through interpretation of the organisational staff talks conducted during the pilot studies.

The second stage of the data analysis is the transcription of the interview records. The interviews are originally in Turkish. The interview records have been uploaded to the NVivo 8 computer program. The transcripts are recorded in Turkish and then translated into English. Categories and themes are generated and uploaded to the program.

In the third stage, the tasks are categorised by the organisational staff during interviews from fast-paced and complex to slow-paced and less complex. The tasks, which are ranked more than 3 in the hand response cards, are determined as complex, and the rest as less complex. The organisational staff is asked to include in the hand response cards whether they are under time pressure during carrying out these tasks. Thus, the time-pressured tasks and less time-pressured tasks are determined. Then, the significance of the tasks to sort out the issues and frequency are determined. At the end of the third stage, the fast-paced tasks that are filtered as significant to sort out the issues, frequently occurring in work settings are determined as time critical and complex, while slow-paced tasks that are filtered as significant to sort out the issues, frequently occurring in work settings are determined as less time critical, complex and less complex in the disaster management context. Contrary to the tasks’ determination in disaster management, fast-paced tasks that are filtered according to their significance and frequency level also involve less complex tasks in a fast-paced situation in the news production context. The determined tasks are listed and discussed in the Activity systems and data analysis chapter (CHAPTER 4 ).

After task selection, the fourth stage involves the generation of themes and codes and establishing relationships between tasks and themes. This stage is the most comprehensive of the data analysis as well as forming its longitudinal stage. This stage involves the interpretation of the transcripts, discourse and content analysis, and analysis of the field observation notes.

The themes generated are called information sharing, information seeking, information use and collective/collaboration for the information behaviour category, and intuition, deliberative, naturalistic, information seeking and information sharing for the decision-making category. The codes are generated through interpretation of words, concepts and sentences of the interview transcripts. For example, codes for information sharing theme are: “… exchange information … ”, “I give what I know … ”, “I send what is in my hand … ”; for collaboration theme are: “ … help each other …”, “ … team mates work together …”, “ … other institutions join for response …”, for decision making themes are “… past experinces in my mind …”, “… sometimes you feel what to do at that time.”, “… put everything together for next actions…”, “ … every clue should be considered before decisions.”, “No time to wait and think …” etc. After the coding process, relationships established.

Through the use of Activity Theory as an analytical tool, tasks are accepted as activities and information behaviour and decision-making are accepted as actions. Utilising Mwanza’s (2004) Eight-step model, the researcher reveals the mediating artefacts, motive, objective and outcome of each activity system. The analysis of relations between subjects, and between subjects and other artefacts are analysed. After the relations are established for single activity systems for each task, the researcher shed light onto the relations between neighbour activity systems.

As the third generation of Activity Theory (Engeström, 2000) indicates that different activity systems are generated around shared objectives, organisations/people carry out tasks in a collaborative manner. Discourse analyses of the interviews reveal that inter- and intra-organisational collaboration occurs. Information sharing establishes the link between organisations and members, so that organisational staff share and use the information found during work tasks.

Another analysis is conducted on the relation between time, task complexity and information behaviour. Discourse analysis reveals how organisational

members behave when they encounter time-critical and complex tasks, namely whether they work in a collaborative/collective manner or not.

Triangulation of the data analysed has been performed to avoid biases and establish the relevance and validity of the data. Three different data collection methods (field observations, interviews and content analysis) facilitate the triangulation. The researcher checks the validity of the data and fills any information gaps in one of the methods used in the case studies.

The last stage of the data analysis is the presentation of the findings and the categorisation of the differences and commonalities between fast-paced and slow-paced situations and contexts. As an outcome of the data analysis, comprehensive information behaviour models are revealed through the interpretation of information behaviour while carrying out selected tasks, and through different decision-making practices under different situations.