Pike Place Market as an Information Ground
Seattle's Pike Place Market fulfills many roles for Seattleites and visitors. Few other places in Seattle draw as many different kinds of people in one place for as many different reasons. It has been called the heart of Seattle for good reason. At the center of all of the market activities is a principle of exchange - of money, goods, services, music, art and perhaps most widespread of all, of information. As a quintessential public space the flow of information at Pike Place Market (hereafter "the Market") is quixotic and rich in potential discoveries in how information is exchanged in the public sphere. In an age when many see healthy communities in decline (Putnam, 2000; Gerbner, 2002), the Market stands out as a vibrant example of a highly regarded and often-used community space. Understanding information exchange at the Market could help us design future community spaces. Specifically, a more refined understanding of the information flows at the Market can help us see how people's information needs are met in, and what needs they bring to, public places like the Market.
To investigate IG's at the Market I constructed a framework from previous IG work. (Fisher, 2004) The authors describe distinct components of information grounds, which facilitated my linking research questions to information ground concepts. This article provided a foundational framework from which to quickly begin iterative data analysis.
I culled findings from the full, abundant relationships discovered through the use of IG concepts. Common to all the IG findings is the variety of roles and purposes people assume in diverse and complex public information spaces such as the Market. For example, a typical "daystaller" at the Market may most explicitly go to the Market to sell crafts to the public from a Market stall. However, for many daystallers the Market is also their primary social outlet, even their surrogate family. To address this profusion of roles and purposes in information sharing, future research efforts for information ground studies at Pike Place should include efforts to specifically investigate various subcontexts of the Market's IG such as daystallers, Market employees, security personnel, out-of-town visitors, and neighborhood residents. Using IGs as a lens to focus on information sharing at the Market allowed a vibrant portrait to emerge. Future IG work there will likely provide powerful lessons for the design of public spaces.
Steve Lappenbusch, PhD Student, Department of Technical Communication, College of Engineering - University of Washington