Smales, Katharine Jane; (2025) The Theory of Binding Together: Information Literacy and children's shared digital reading in a time of social distancing. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This qualitative study explores the information literacy practice of children and their families via shared digital reading practices at home during social distancing. Constructivist grounded theory was used to examine the information activities of eighteen families, including twenty-five children. Innovative information-giving and consent procedures were employed, as well as video data and semi-structured interviews. These methods gave children and their families the opportunity to present an explanatory narrative and contextual information which can be difficult to explain in words. This study is informed by agential realism and practice theory. It uses the sensitising concept of paratexts to explore digitally mediated shared reading activities which are not always limited to one device. The theory of binding together emerges from the study’s analysis and provides a fulsome account of how engagement with information supported children’s shared digital reading during a mandated isolation period. The theory illustrates how parents along with children, extended family and teachers, customised and navigated a wide range of information sources, which were mediated via shared digital reading activities to maintain connection between people at a time of isolation. Methodologically, the research contributes by employing a design which used participatory video methods with children. This raised a range of ethical hurdles relating to the collection of young children’s identifying data. This was overcome by co-creating a picturebook with an illustrator and which was informed by the theoretical framework of the study. Theoretically, the study showcases the use of paratextual theory in Information Studies research, and uses a theoretical framework which offers a fresh approach to paratexts. The theory demonstrates how paratexts and the body enable and constrain information literacy and establishes how situated and contingent information is in digital settings. Lastly, it evidences how information literacy practice shapes, enables and contributes to the meaning-making of shared digital reading practices.

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