Zugl.: Zürich, Universiẗat, Diss., 2006.

Zugl.: Regensburg, Univ., Diss., 2005

The ongoing covid-19 pandemic has changed the information practices of people, including Japanese immigrants to Sweden. This study aims to clarify the characteristics and problems of everyday information practices of the study group, i.e. Swedish-Japanese, during the covid-19 pandemic. Japanese living in Japan are also included for comparative analysis. I also investigate how information practices relate to the study group’s social context and cultural background, and how they are experiencing information barriers. For this purpose, a qualitative approach was chosen, and semi-structured interviews were carried out. The informants were a total of five Japanese people living in Sweden and five Japanese people living in Japan. The results were analyzed using inductive approaches. Then the empirical data of the informants' information practices were categorized based on Savolainen's (2021) model of everyday information practices (EIP), consisting of three ways, and McKenzie’s (2003) model of information seeking. Then, the informants' barriers with information practices were analyzed using Savolainen's (2016a) sociocultural barriers. Findings show that both groups are similarly actively seeking information and actively scanning for information everyday using multiple sources of information. However, the results also show that the informants have been influenced by social and cultural background. The Swedish-Japanese conduct more active online scanning, while the Japanese in Japan are relatively passive and conduct everyday non-directed surveillance. Trust in politicians and authorities also differed between the two groups. Japanese people in Japan often point out that such information is incomprehensible, and they have a habit of using easy-to-understand sources of information instead. This incomprehensibility seems to be due to Japanese culture, where language expression is ambiguous and situation dependent. In contrast, Swedish-Japanese have confidence in Swedish authorities. In addition, the informants do not state much about socio-cultural barriers to information practices at the interview except for the institutional barriers.  Finally, the characteristics and problems of everyday information practices among Swedish-Japanese were influenced by their cultural background and personal background, as well as the Swedish social context. In addition, their information practices differ from the Japanese in Japan. Through information practices, they may have acquired both global and local identities, which promote integration and inclusion for Swedish-Japanese in the host country of Sweden. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.