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Most people in the 21st century consume information online through social media, news outlets, or pop-up advertisements. While information is more accessible than at any other point in human history, the way information is organized is highly dependent on historical approaches to how that information was created and shared. We call the model of how information is created and disseminated the information life cycle.

The information life cycle places information we consume on a timeline with milestones such as “Day of” or “Months after,” in temporal relation to an event. The information life cycle helps us discover what kind of information and research are available about any given event over time. Where a piece of information occurs in the information life cycle shapes how we think of it as evidence or potential research material. The short video below explains the concept in more detail:

If you prefer to read the text of the video, click on the CC option on the video, or  read the transcript of the information cycle video.

This timeline of coverage of the Women’s March gives another good overview of how the Information Cycle works.

Here is the most important thing to know about the information life cycle: WHEN we encounter a piece of information has a significant influence on the quality and quantity of information available. If we are hunting for information sources about the Grammy Awards in 2024 we will find a variety of primary sources on social media and in newspapers and magazines. If we are hunting for information about how scholars have analyzed the Grammy Awards and their impact on the music industry, we should seek out secondary sources in articles or books written and published by scholars. However, we might not expect scholars to cover the most recent awards ceremonies because of the time it takes for secondary research to be conducted and published. Background sources like Wikipedia will summarize important facts and scholarship that has been published about the Grammy Awards over time. The information life cycle reflects how information sharing and technology work together (or sometimes not!) to create and disseminate new knowledge.

It is also important to know that the information life cycle follows Western European publishing traditions. For example, oral and nonwritten traditions of information sharing are completely absent, ignoring the ways that non-Western cultures may share information differently.

The information life cycle seems to be chronologically linear, moving from days to weeks to months to years. However, you may notice encyclopedias listed at the end of the information life cycle and wonder, “Why would it take 5 to 10 years for something to appear in an encyclopedia when Wikipedia is updated every day?”

The answer is that traditional encyclopedias are managed by large teams of editors who solicit experts to provide summaries of the scholarly landscape for readers. Some encyclopedias, like Oxford Music Online, focus on presenting expert perspectives from one academic discipline. The writing, editing, and publishing process is lengthy—it can take up to a decade to revise every article in a scholarly encyclopedia. This example shows how technology—in this case Wikipedia—can disrupt the traditional information life cycle. As you can see, these disruptions often impact the way we perceive knowledge production. But the information life cycle is still a helpful tool as a basic landscape for your research process.

Opportunities with new technology—such as immediately updating an entry in Wikipedia—can change audience expectations. The assumption that information can and should appear instantly influences the way information is produced and shared. However, business models that evolved around technology can be resistant to changing as quickly as technology might allow. This means that being an effective researcher and consumer of information depends on your understanding of the production of knowledge in the past and how those practices impact the way it is produced today.

Project Information Literacy and Climate Change Survey

Students at Indiana University South Bend (part of 9 participating colleges across the country) took part in a 2024 study about information habits and attitudes about climate change. Thinking about the Personal Information Ecosystem, take a note of what college students listed as their general information seeking behavior and where they had gotten their most recent news about climate change and whether they sought out this news or passively consumed it. The students were also asked whether they thought this information was credible and how they determined the credibility of the sources they encounter. Considering your own information seeking behavior, and what you have just learned about the information cycle in the video and readings in this chapter, how does it compare to the students responses in the climate change survey?

Sources

“Information Cycle” is adapted from Unlocking the Digital Age Copyright © 2024 by John Hopkins University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

“Understanding the Information Cycle.” YouTube, Uploaded by Northern Illinois University Libraries, 28 May 2021.

“Information Cycle.” by Lisa Campbell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Alison J. Head, Steven Geofrey, Barbara Fister, and Kirsten Hostetler (July 9, 2024), How information worlds shape our response to climate change, Project Information Literacy Research Institute, https://projectinfolit.org/publications/climate-study