Authority is Constructed and Contextual Reflection

Whether or not information has authority depends on the context, meaning how is it use and for what purpose and by who. Information that is needed for a brief idea on a subject might require less research or might not require for instance a Peer-Reviewed journal article as opposed to a bit of information one may find using the search engine 'google'. A student busy writing a thesis might require more in-depth and thoroughly reviewed articles and books as opposed to a grade 7 learner asked to present a topic on HIV/Aids.

Authority may not necessarily be the same as expertise. An expert in a certain field may not exactly have authority in that subject. It depends on disciplinary familiarity, prestige, popularity and is a result normally of exposure (contextual). An example I think of while I'm writing this is something that occurred a while back at our church. A religious leader in our community who has a degree in theology and wrote various articles on religion came to our church and asked if he may have a few minutes to address the congregation, he was denied this request because in our Church we believe that one shouldn't go to a University to study the bible but the bible unfolds it's meaning to you by means of the 'Holy Spirit' so whatever authority he migh have in the field of religion isn't recognised by our church.

It is constructed in the sense a researcher may be told that the following sources can't be used in a course or subject based either on a curriculum that was set up or a lecturers personal preference. Up until the first semester of 2015 I didn't know or rather I was told by previous lecturers that using 'Wiki' isn't allowed and they were quite strict on that but then in doing 'ICT' as part of my PGDipLIS I was taught that it is quite fine to use 'Wiki' on occasion and that I must just focus on referencing it properly.

Here are a few links one may follow to learn more about this frame;

http://libraryguides.unh.edu/c.php?g=326931&p=2189833

http://library.albany.edu/infolit/framework