An Information Foraging Analysis of Note Taking and Note Sharing While Browsing Campaign Information

Abstract

In this paper, we present an experimental study of political information foraging in the context of e-voting. Participants were observed while searching and browsing the internet for campaign information in a mock-voting situation in three online note-taking conditions: No Notes, Private Notes, and Shared Notes. Interaction analysis of the study data consisted of applying Information Foraging Theory to understand participants' searching, and browsing behaviors. Empirical results show skewed time allocation to activities, a tradeoff between enrichment vs. exploitation of search results and issues with lack of scent, low value perception, and value depletion of information. Implications for the voter centered design of e-voting portals are discussed.