Information‐Seeking Processes as Temporal Developments: Comparison of Stage‐based and Cyclic Approaches

Drawing on the ideas of process philosophy, this study elaborates the nature of information‐seeking process by approaching them as temporal developments. To this end, a conceptual analysis was made by comparing key models which approach information seeking as stage‐based and cyclic processes. The nature of such processes was scrutinized by devoting attention to two main aspects, that is, the temporal order in which the constituents of information seeking appear during the process, and the changes occurring in the constituents. Stage‐based approaches draw on linear time concept by conceptualizing such processes as sets of consecutive activities progressing toward a final point. Cyclic approaches conceptualize information‐seeking processes as sets of iterative activities which may be repeated. The findings suggest that stage‐based and cyclic approaches should not be opposite approaches; rather, they complement each other. However, cyclic models emphasizing the importance of feedback loops have gained more popularity in the modeling of web searching, whereas the interest in the development of stage‐based approaches has decreased since the 1990s.