The purpose of this conceptual paper is to suggest that the growing sociocultural theorisation of risk calls for a more robust research focus on the role that information and in particular, information literacy, plays in mediating hazards and danger.
Starting by tracing how information has been conceptualised in relation to risk through technoscientific, cognitive and sociocultural lenses, the paper then focuses on emerging sociocultural understandings of risk to present a research agenda for a renewed sociocultural exploration of how risk is shaped through the enactment of information literacy.
The paper identifies and examines how information literacy shapes four key aspects of risk, including risk perception, risk management, risk-taking and “at-risk” populations. These four aspects are further connected through broader themes of learning, identity, work and power, which form the basis of the sociocultural risk research agenda.
This paper is the first study bringing together the many understandings related to how risk is informed and establishes risk as a key area of interest within information literacy research.
