Library and Information Science

Media are formed by condensing information into the specific representation of those media. In this study the process of forming information into media is regarded as ‹condensation of information›, and its phenomena with the people, especially with the authors actually participating in the information flow, is investigated, applying the grounded theory method.

The interviews with the authors in medical science, as well as the comparison of the representation of original papers and the author abstracts in medical science, are collected as data and coded qualitatively. There seems many categories emerged from the coding of the comparison, because the condensing ratio and the specific style of the author abstracts and the original papers differ. The causes of the differences were identified with authors' cognitive process through which those media were formed, drawn from the interviews.

As the result of this analysis, those categories can be interpretated from some dimensions: the structual conditions surrounding the process of forming information into media, the way the author's research is narrowed down to be represented in the media through the process, and the consequences of the ‹condensation of information›. These clarify the process of forming information into author abstracts in terms of authors and show how information is condensed in one specific media, presenting some problems in handling media from the standpoints of information science.