A while back, I wondered about the Information Habits of Religious Leaders. Well, I was able to research this topic a bit and decided to post my analysis of one article here. Here is the article I read for the assignment
Wicks, Donald A. “The Information-Seeking Behavior of Pastoral Clergy: A Study of the Interaction of Their Work Worlds and Work Roles.” Library & Information Science Research 21, no. 2 (1999): 205–26. doi:10.1016/S0740-8188(99)00003-1.
I was very pleased to learn that there is a lot of scholarship on this topic and I look forward to reading more in the future!
For this assignment, I decided to explore the information habits of clergy and read the article “The Information-Seeking Behavior of Pastoral Clergy: A Study of the Interaction of Their Work Worlds and Work Roles” by Donald A. Wicks. This study used mailed surveys and structured interviews. The surveys were mailed to 989 participants spanning six denominational bodies in southern Ontario. These religious groups – Roman Catholic, United Church of Christ, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Pentecostal – were selected because they represent the largest denominations in the province and because they span the religious spectrum.[1] The 38.2% response rate provided a confidence interval of 95% with a reliability of +/- 4%. Structured interviews with 20 of the potential respondents – selected randomly from the range of the groups represented – were conducted to “add depth and richness to the survey data.”[2]
Within the general field of information studies, this study’s theoretical approach was to combine social network theories with the role theories and determine how the interaction of those fields influenced information behaviors. Social network theory was defined as “the boundaries that may influence information seeking” and this study identified three ‘pastoral worlds,’ namely: the theological world, the denominational world, and the congregational world.[3] Various role theories assert that within a given populations, information behaviors vary based on task. In this study, Wicks identified three work roles – preaching, caregiving, and administrating – and indeed found that clergy information behaviors differed based on pastoral role.
This, in fact, was the study’s most general finding, that “pastoral clergy tended to use different types of sources in different roles and that certain combinations of pastoral worlds and roles influenced…information-seeking behaviors.”[4] Wicks, however, continues by exploring how each social world – theological, denominational, congregational – intersected with each work role – preaching, caregiving, and administrating – and introduces language of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ to describe this relationship. If information-seeking for a given role was governed by the social world, Wicks described that relationship as ‘closed’ and if information-seeking behaviors were not restricted by the social world, Wicks described that as ‘open.’[5] For example, considering theological worlds and the preaching role, Wicks found that both liberal and conservative clergy tended to seeking information within a closed system whereas moderate clergy were more open to using resources from different theological worlds. In terms of the denominational world, Wicks demonstrated the denominational influences varied based on pastoral task, concluding that “denominational world does not influence information-seeking behavior when the minister is performing the preacher role” but that denominational world has a mixed influence when a pastor is in a caregiving role.[6] Lastly, Wicks found that the congregational social world has relatively little influence on any of the pastoral roles; that the theological position of the pastor and the denominational world had a much stronger influence on all pastoral roles.
Overall, the theoretical approach of combining social network theories and role theory yielded a wealth of actionable information. In general, the findings of this study imply that information systems and services should designed with particular pastoral roles in mind. For example, information systems designed to support preaching should be different than systems designed to support caregiving and administration. Furthermore, these findings indicate that information systems and services should take a diverse approach by providing access to information objects through a range of means and modes. Additionally, because information systems and services do not exist outside of social networks but are often embedded within theological or denominational frameworks, these systems should be aware of the theological polarization Wicks discovered and how it affects their organizational mission. Wick’s overall conclusion, that “we must understand the context of the user, including the role being performed and the social network of the individual,” restates his main theoretical framework and provides a solid paradigm to explore additional questions about the information-seeking behaviors of clergy.
[1] Wicks, “The Information-Seeking Behavior of Pastoral Clergy,” 209.
[2] Ibid., 210.
[3] Ibid., 206.
[4] Ibid., 205.
[5] Ibid., 209.
[6] Ibid., 213.