Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Volume 70, Issue 1, 2019, Pages 38-48
The “Had Mores”: Exploring korean immigrants’ information behavior and ICT usage when settling in the United States (Article) (Open Access)
Suh M.M. ,
Hsieh G.*
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a
Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
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b
Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
Abstract
The process of settling in a new country can be extremely challenging, entailing various information needs to cope with rapid changes and adjustments to a new environment. Through interviews with 16 Korean immigrants in the United States, we explored their information behaviors in the settlement process. In line with prior work (Shoham & Strauss, 2008), we found that Korean immigrants needed various types of information: housing, work, banking, transportation, law, school, health, and language. Out of these information types, the Korean immigrants prioritized information for education and struggled to seek health and legal information. We further uncovered that various information needs are closely intertwined and found an additional type of information need: to build a new social network after migration. They often used Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as information sources while adapting the ICT infrastructures of the U.S. into their information practices. ICTs enabled them to build and maintain “local” and “global” identity; however, they may struggle to assess user-generated content in the new context. We noted that their strong use of ICTs for intraethnic interaction might slow down their integration into the host society. We discuss implications for future work to support immigrants' settlement in the host country. © 2018 ASIS&T
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Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85056777654&doi=10.1002%2fasi.24078&partnerID=40&md5=c882a4564f560c63de8ed5e38ad20b42
DOI: 10.1002/asi.24078
ISSN: 23301635
Cited by: 1
Original Language: English