Final Exam

How did Elfreda Chatman’s theories about Information Poverty and Life in the Round match the experiences of the Collins family in the documentary Legacy?

 

            Elfreda Chatman’s theories about information poverty explained way why information seeking behavior is like the way it is.  One main way that her theories related to the Collins family in the documentary was the idea of people who are poor often view themselves of being devoid of any resources.  With the mom and aunt in Legacy I believe both felt like there was no resources for them to get out of their situation.  For example when the mom tried to get a job she was unable to do that because of the lack of resources such as childcare.  When she asked for help none was provided. 

 

Another Example of Chatman’s theories were the idea that deception and secrecy are both mechanisms used due to the mistrust of other people being able to provide useful information.  An example of Legacy was the mistrust of the system that was provided to the family.  The older members of the family often had a hard time trusting people to help them with getting through issues they had. 

 

The other concept that Chatman brought up was the concept of the small world.  This explained that life in the small world is something that is just understood and that’s the way it is.  This was prevalent in the neighborhood that the Collins family was in.  Things were expected to be a certain such as many from there were not expected to get out of that bad neighborhood, many were not expected to go to college, and drugs, violence and pregnancy at a young age were just considered the norm.