The French Conception of Information Science: Une Exception Française?

The French conception of Information science is often compared to the Anglophone one which is perceived as different and rooted mainly in Shannon's mathematical theory of communication. While there is such thing as a French conception of information science, this conception is not totally divorced from the Anglophone one. Unbeknown to researchers from the two geographical and cultural regions, they share similar conceptions of the field and invoke similar theoretical foundations, in particular the socio-constructivist theory. There is also a convergence of viewpoint on the dual nature of information science, i.e., the fact that it is torn between two competing paradigms – objectivist or systems driven and subjectivist or human oriented. Technology is another area where a convergence of viewpoint is noticeable: scholars from both geographic and cultural zones display the same suspicion towards the role of technology and of computer science. It is therefore misleading to continue to uphold the view that the Anglosaxon information science is essentially objectivist and technicist while the French conception is essentially social or cultural and rooted in the humanities. This paper highlights the converging analyses from both cultural and geographical regions in order to foster a better understanding of the challenges that information science is facing worldwide and help trace a path to how the global information science community can try to meet them.