Search Foundations: Toward a Science of Technology-Mediated Experience

by Sachi Arafat, Elham Ashoori

Overview

A call to redirect the intellectual focus of information retrieval and science (IR&S) toward the phenomenon of technology-mediated experience.

In this book, Sachi Arafat and Elham Ashoori issue a call to reorient the intellectual focus of information retrieval and science (IR&S) away from search and related processes toward the more general phenomenon of technology-mediated experience. Technology-mediated experience accounts for an increasing proportion of human lived experience; the phenomenon of mediation gets at the heart of the human-machine relationship. Framing IR&S more broadly in this way generalizes its problems and perspectives, dovetailing them with those shared across disciplines dealing with socio-technical phenomena. This reorientation of IR&S requires imagining it as a new kind of science: a science of technology-mediated experience (STME). Arafat and Ashoori not only offer detailed analysis of the foundational concepts underlying IR&S and other technical disciplines but also boldly call for a radical, systematic appropriation of the sciences and humanities to create a better understanding of the human-technology relationship.

Arafat and Ashoori discuss the notion of progress in IR&S and consider ideas of progress from the history and philosophy of science. They argue that progress in IR&S requires explicit linking between technical and nontechnical aspects of discourse. They develop a network of basic questions and present a discursive framework for addressing these questions. With this book, Arafat and Ashoori provide both a manifesto for the reimagining of their field and the foundations on which a reframed IR&S would rest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262553476
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	02/04/2025
Series:	History and Foundations of Information Science
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sachi Arafat is Assistant Professor of Data Science at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia.

Elham Ashoori is a Senior Scientist at Conduent.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Genealogy xvii

Acknowledgments xxiii

Introduction 1

1 The Embedding of the Foundational in the Ad Hoc 13

1.1 Introduction: The Nature of Modern Technology 13

1.1.1 Mediation as Revealing and Hiding 17

1.1.2 Modern Devices as Enabling Mediation Phenomena 19

1.1.3 Construing Device-Based Mediational Processes 21

1.2 Search: A Significant Phenomenon of Mediation 24

1.2.1 Conceptions of Search 24

1.2.2 A Semantic Conception of Search: Search as Meaning-Generating and Meaning-Suggesting 27

1.2.3 Search as Presupposed 34

1.3 Studying the Semantic Conception of Search: Information Retrieval and Science (IR&S) 37

1.3.1 Structuring Phenomena around Ad Hoc Search 42

1.3.2 Structuring Information Retrieval Research around Ad Hoc Research 46

1.4 The Modern Trend Away from Ad Hoc Research 63

1.4.1 The Foundational in Ad Hoc Information Retrieval Research 64

1.4.2 The Foundational in Information Science Research 66

1.5 Foundations Research 67

1.5.1 Fieldwide Questions and Their Modern Relevance 68

1.5.2 Making Foundations Research Explicit 70

1.6 Conclusion 73

2 Notions of Progress in Information Retrieval 77

2.1 Introduction 77

2.2 Integrating Approaches (Internal Coherence) 81

2.3 Capturing Users and Context (Effective Construal and Objectification) 85

2.3.1 What Is Construal? 87

2.3.2 Construal as Pre-Theoretical, Culturally Informed, and Nontechnical 89

2.3.3 Construal Problems in Experimental IR 91

2.3.4 Construing Search 99

2.3.5 Construal and Foundations 105

2.4 Exploring Links with Other Fields (External Coherence) 109

2.4.1 External Coherence Requires Metatheory 111

2.4.2 External Coherence and Foundations Discourse 113

2.5 Notions of Progress (or Values) Pertaining to Evaluation 115

2.5.1 Emerging Phenomena Imply Changing the Space of Values and Rethinking Evaluation 118

2.5.2 Explanatory Evaluation Programs and the Value of Explanation 125

2.5.3 Useful Differences and Statistical Significance 131

2.5.4 Generalizability 132

2.5.5 Result Stability 135

2.6 Rank Improvement, Theory Growth, and Progress 139

2.7 Conclusion 140

3 From Growth to Progress I: Methodology for Understanding Progress 141

3.1 Introduction: Can IR&S Be Analyzed Using Ideas from the History and Philosophy of Science? 141

3.2 Appraising Science by Historical Analyses 143

3.2.1 This Work as a Rational Reconstruction 145

3.2.2 Adopting the Bask Structure of an Internal History 147

3.2.3 From "What Is Progress?" to "What Could Progress Mean?" 149

3.3 External Histories: Understanding Socio-Technical Change 150

3.3.1 Foucauldian Methodology for External Histories 152

3.3.2 Critical Theory and External History 153

3.3.3 External Historical Analyses in Service of Foundations Research 154

3.3.4 Modern Application Contexts Demand Serious External Historical Analysis 156

3.3.5 From External to Internal History and Scientific Progress 157

3.4 Internal Histories: Understanding Scientific Change 158

3.4.1 Prior Work on Understanding Scientific Change in IR&S 160

3.4.2 Brookes's Kuhnian Picture of Scientific Development in IR&S 164

3.4.3 Theories of Scientific Change 170

3.4.4 From Theories to Propositions 183

3.5 Conclusion 184

4 From Growth to Progress II: The Network of Discourse 187

4.1 Introduction 187

4.2 Applying Lakatos outside the Natural Sciences 188

4.3 Lakatos's Methodology for Appraising Research Programs 189

4.3.1 Lakatos's Change Narrative in Detail 190

4.4 Modifying Lakatos's MSRP for IR&S 193

4.4.1 From Facts to Propositions 194

4.4.2 Adjusting Mereology 195

4.4.3 Adjusting Research Goals 199

4.4.4 Adjusting How Successive Constructs Are Compared 201

4.4.5 Expanding the Notion of Progressive Change 202

4.4.6 Adjusting Types of Degenerative States 204

4.5 Progressive Growth as Coordinated and Coherent 205

4.6 Conclusion 207

5 Basic Questions Characterizing Foundations Discourse 211

5.1 Introduction 211

5.1.1 Categories of Foundations Questions: Disciplinary versus Comportment Questions 214

5.1.2 Properties of the Foundations Network: Its Purpose, Use, and Complementary Research Culture 219

5.1.3 Structure of This Chapter 221

5.2 Questions Pertaining to the Discipline and Discourse 222

5.2.1 Received Identities for IR and IS 223

5.2.2 What Kind of Science Can IR&S Be, If It Can Be a Science at All? 227

5.2.3 Identity and the Concept of Information 228

5.2.4 Identity through Ethics and Craft 230

5.2.5 Identity and the Growing Space of Values 232

5.3 Questions about Comportment toward Specific Entities or Relations 234

5.3.1 Different Levels of Phenomena 235

5.3.2 Adopting a Causal Theory of Technology 242

5.3.3 What Is a User? User as Embodied-Embedded Being 246

5.3.4 What Are Information Needs? Information Needs and Final and Efficient Causes 252

5.3.5 What Is a Query? Query as Formal Cause 254

5.3.6 What Is a System? System as Material Cause 259

5.3.7 What Is a Document? Document as Experienced 263

5.3.8 What Is Relevance? 272

5.3.9 What Is Context? 274

5.3.10 What Is a Collection? 276

5.4 General Issues Pertaining to Comportment 279

5.4.1 From Foundations to Nonfoundations 281

5.4.2 Observational Contexts 283

5.4.3 Explanatory Strategies 286

5.4.4 Coordinated Theory Growth 289

5.5 Conclusion 293

6 The Enduring Nature of Foundations 295

6.1 Introduction 295

6.2 Prior Foundations Research 298

6.3 Foundations and the Present 302

6.3.1 Modern Foundational Works in IS 303

6.3.2 Foundations Texts in IR as Mathematical Foundations 306

6.3.3 The Place of This Work among Present Works 306

6.4 Future of Foundations I: The Requirement of integrating IR and IS 307

6.5 Future of Foundations II: A New Kind of Science? 311

6.5.1 Why a "Science of Technology-Mediated Experience"? 311

6.5.2 Neither a Science of the Artificial nor a Subdiscipline of Cultural Studies 313

6.5.3 The Craft of STME as a Memory Craft 316

6.5.4 The Scientific-Explanatory Aspect of a STME 326

6.6 Conclusion 339

7 Foundations as the Way to the Authoritative against the Authoritarian: A Conclusion 341

7.1 Introduction 341

7.2 Foundations as Characterizing the World Picture of IR&S 343

7.3 Implications tor an IR&S Discourse with and without Foundations 347

7.3.1 Lack of Authoritative Discourse 348

7.3.2 Dissolution of the Discipline 349

7.3.3 Breakdown of Institutions 349

7.4 Conclusion 350

References 351

Index 385

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

As our society becomes ever more dependent on information and communication technologies, there is a pressing need for reflection on the conceptual and philosophical bases of our digital technologies. Sachi Arafat and Elham Ashoori provide such a foundational approach to search, and it is to be warmly welcomed.

—David Bawden, Professor of Information Science, City, University of London; co-author of Introduction to Information Science

Search Foundations is an ambitious, extensive, and thoughtful piece that explores the importance of foundations discourse, IR & S, and the idea of the science of technology-mediated experience. A thought-provoking journey.

—Lai Ma, Lecturer/Assistant Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin

We live in a world of search engines. Understanding search as technology-mediated experience, the work addresses the foundations of classic information retrieval research. Well informed and widely rooted. Highly recommended for those with the courage and desire to challenge received theories.

—Julian Warner, Queen's University Belfast; Author of Human Information Retrieval