Flexible Queries in the eCommerce Shopping Mall: A Discursive Analysis

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on flexibility in a “query-answering” system which includes the user who generates the queries as well as other components of the system responsible for interpreting and fulfilling the query. Furthermore, the emphasis is expanded from pure “queries” which can be satisfied by information alone to generalized queries which may be satisfied by some combination of information, services, and physical goods not initially known in detail by the user. In order to carry out these comparisons and contrasts in a manner that uncovers potentially useful implications for internet infrastructure providers, consumer oriented enterprises, and business-to-business enterprises, we will use an analytic approach based on the post-structural theories of Michel Foucault.