Purpose – Following the assumption that studies of information inequality need to be based on precise discrimination between society’s information rich and poor and against the context that a mechanism for such discrimination is still lacking, the purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of establishing a holistic informational measurement. Design/methodology/approach – It does so by developing a measurement based on the conceptualization of the individual as an information agent and his/her information world as his/her characterization. The development procedure consists of four steps: operationalization of the theoretical constructs and the initial drafting of the questionnaire instrument; revisions of the questionnaire based on pilot tests with small groups of people; weighing of the questionnaire items for the purpose of calculating index-type variable scores; formal test of validity and reliability. Findings – The resulting measurement consists of eight variables corresponding to eight the...
['Liangzhi Yu', 'Wenjie Zhou', 'Binbin Yu', 'Hefa Liu']
Towards a comprehensive measurement of the information rich and poor: Based on the conceptualization of individuals as information agents