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3.4.5 The community profile approach
This approach develops and measures the demographic and environmental
needs of a community.
3.4.6 The interests, activities and group memberships approach
In these measurements, respondents are asked to detail their interests,
activities, and their group memberships. Extrapolations are then made from
the data in order to infer program development needs.
In a critical analysis of the above mentioned approaches, Dervin and Nilan
(1986:17) stipulate that traditional paradigms have some limitations, as
they are all constrained by system' definitions as to what "needs" are. The
authors argue that "information needs" in these traditional paradigms have
not been defined as what users think they need, but rather as what is in the
information system that is needed. In other words, studies using any of the
above mentioned approaches centre on user behaviour primarily in the
context of user interaction with systems. "Need" in this regard could
therefore be said to be directed towards "system needs' and not "user
needs". According to these two authors, studies with a traditional paradigm
focus mostly on "what" questions (e.g. 'what systems do people use 7 ' or
'what services do people use?').
In contrast, in conceptualising user-oriented research on needs and uses,
Dervin and Milan (1986: 19-24) explain that the "alternative" paradigm has
three primary approaches, i.e.: the value added approach (user-values
approach); the anomalous state of knOWledge (ASK); and the sense making
approach.
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