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"Gangnam Mom”: A qualitative study on the information behaviors of Korean helicopter mothers

Park, Sohyun, Hyunchul Lim, and Heekyung Choi.

iConference 2015 Proceedings (2015).

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This study investigates information seeking, sharing, and managing behaviors of “Gangnam mothers,” a group of dedicated Korean mothers who invest significant time and effort to micro-manage their child’s academic needs. These mothers’ vibrant and sophisticated information seeking and managing loads of education-related information sources is worthy of attention from information behavior research. To learn about their information behavior, field observations and interviews with mothers of school-aged children in Gangnam, the southern part of Seoul, have been conducted. The findings show that Gangnam mothers are personal information experts who heavily utilize human channels of information and employ local, group and personal filtering strategies. The fascinating information ecology of mothers in their diverse strategies for navigating and filtering information, coupled with the unique information environment in Gangnam, makes the flood of education-related information surprisingly manageable.

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