Crises, paradigms, and Information Science: reflections from the scientific community concept

Abstract

The paradigm understood as a consensus, a standard to be adopted that includes a set of theories, beliefs, values, and techniques shared by a scientific community is problematic when analyzed from a point of view that considers the nuances of scientific activity in general and informational paradigms of Information Science. As hypothesis,      we work from the idea that understanding scientific revolutions and crises as inherent to the information paradigms in Information Science contributes to the development and strengthening of the concept of scientific communities in the area. This research aims to reflect on the paradigmatic crisis of scientific knowledge and its implications within the scope of Information Science, presenting aspects related to the context of the scientific community, the information paradigms, and the occurrence of paradigmatic crises in information. Based on the indirect documentary research technique, bibliographic sources were used, selected according to the approach chosen for the topic. Therefore, the research is qualitative, and the methodology used outlines a general framework for a specific analysis of the understanding of the paradigmatic crisis in the scientific community of Information Science. The results show, in addition to the viability of multiple paradigms in Information Science, that ruptures, crises, problems, discontinuities, doubts, errors, and accidents should be incorporated into epistemological and paradigmatic studies in the field. The discussion highlights the criticism to the limitations of a paradigm in Information Science, showing that the different paradigms coexist due to an ethical principle around collectivity and interdisciplinarity as predominant characteristics of the concept of scientific community in the area. In conclusion, this work reaffirms that paradigmatic consensus and conceptual harmony are ideal forms of science, but what moves research in the scientific community of Information Science are the continuous processes, investigations, and attempts to relate similarities and differences. This us, the article contributes to advancing discussions on the notion of paradigmatic crises and their relationship with the effects on the concept of scientific community and information in the three paradigms chosen for analysis in Information Science.