Information-based mitigation of intimate partner violence

Compelled Nonuse of Information (CNI) is a model of information behavior developed by Houston (2009, 2011a). CNI posits the existence of nonvolitional mechanisms that force information behaviors beyond the control of the individual. The CNI model consists of six primary CNI types: intrinsic somatic barriers, socio-environmental barriers, authoritarian barriers, threshold knowledge shortfall barriers, attention shortfall barriers, and filtering barriers. This typology of information interaction limitations functions across a full range of socio-economic contexts and thus lends itself to analysis of intractable power-based inequities such as intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV includes physical, mental, financial, and social attacks that, if known, generate socially sanctioned responses of both formal (e.g., law enforcement) and informal (e.g., pastoral) approaches. Using the CNI framework to analyze information factors in distinct facets of the IPV experience, as identified in the cross disciplinary research on this phenomenon, this article provides a practical application of CNI to a complicated, high-risk phenomenon.