[Sigia-l] Findability is dead, Long live ummm... Meaning?

[Surla, Stacy]

Tangential (perhaps) to Faith's post:

"Faith Peterson wrote:
...I'm hugely interested in ways to enable people to get at real
information, and to help end users of information evaluate and organize
information. There is a very interesting discussion in a relatively old
book, Hyper/text Theory edited by George Landow, about how meaning is
created in the interaction between the reader and the text, and the reader's
traversal of links creates a brand new and unique work every time the
hypertext author's work product is encountered. "

I wonder if Reader-Response theory might offer further thinking/talking
points for IA at this stage.  This school of literary criticism suggests
that meaning takes place -- NOT in the intention of the author, NOR in some
immutable "realness" embedded within the words or structures of the text --
but in the experience of the reader while in the act of reading.  A fellow
named Stanley Fish came up with this theory.  The possible usefulness of
this model could include... a focus on the user and the "interpretive
communities" or audience of a site to find out what happens to generate
understanding when using the web; and a shifting of focus from the website
as the important object to the dynamic thing that happens between website
and user.  

Is this actually useful?  I don't know.  I always tended towards the
semiotic view of things (the science of signs)... Anyone interested in
further discussion?

~Stacy