Postmodern Paradigm Shift

Watson (1995) describes postmodernism as the shift from the traditional western view of one reality and linear thinking to thinking in non-linear, multiple realities. Ejournals can also be examined as a change in paradigm from obtaining knowledge within boundaries of texts or two dimensionality of print to one of obtaining knowledge without boundaries or the restrictions of seeking one "truth." The shift from the boundaries of two dimensionality would certainly encompass the realm of ejournals where professionals and lay individuals are able to log on to a journal and obtain knowledge at will in their own time frame. However, does this shift really represent a new paradigm? If ejournals are only the pathways to obtaining new realities, they are not in themselves paradigm shifts, just, once again, the method of working within the new paradigm. To say that ejournals represent a paradigm shift makes them a much different concept than they are currently being used today.

Langford and Hardin (1999) argue that there has been a paradigm shift in nursing as a result of the electronic environment. They characterized this view as a switch in paradigm represented by the nursing simultaneity paradigm where there is a unification of time and space that is unbound, nonsequential, without absolutes. This fluidity of time and space is evident in ejournals and is especially evident in the conceptualization of OJIN where issues can be updated as new knowledge or thinking on topics progresses. However, can this idea really be called a paradigm shift. The ideas of boundarylessness and time and space unification have been present in nursing for over 20 years and have an exceptional theoretical basis in research and clinical practice. It is true that this idea is not the prevailing paradigm in nursing, but it is not a new thought or a new paradigm. It is one of the preparadigms currently active in nursing. According to Kuhn, there would be a paradigm shift if the predominance of thought would shift from the adaptive and empirical schools of thought that currently predominate nursing to the predominance and domination of the postmodern simultaneity paradigm. Kuhn states that preparadigms exist until one of the preparadigms answers more questions than the others do and is embraced by the discipline. If nursing is heading toward embracing one paradigm over the others and moving toward Kuhn's paradigm stage of knowledge, then this is a paradigm shift. However, even if this shift would occur in nursing, ejournals and computer surfing again only represent a method of experiencing the paradigm and not a paradigm shift in itself.

Norris talks about hyper linking in terms of the ability not only to bring the printed word to the professional and client, but, unlike written journals, to help understand, see, and experience in some fashion the thoughts that the writer has and can convey in an added dimension. This multidimensionality of the experience of writing and sharing ones thoughts that is not possible in the written world may represent a postmodern paradigm shift. Norris references Landow (1997), who states that the experience of traveling the net is constructed by the individual through the use of these hyperlinks. This individual construction of knowledge and reality implies multiple ways of envisioning the world. This ability to construct your reality and knowledge in unique ways supports the idea of a postmodern paradigm shift. However, ejournals represent only one way to gather knowledge and are not expansive enough to represent a postmodern paradigm shift. If ejournals truly presented knowledge in a new form different from written journals or in a new way, a paradigm shift may have occurred.

Ejournals have produced an advanced method of scholarly interaction in the sense that individuals can respond instantaneously to the articles and these responses can be published as soon as the editors receive them. This creates a more dynamic interaction than in the written journals again highlighting a more simultaneity paradigm than traditional journals allow. However, this in itself, is not a substantial enough change to represent a paradigm shift as described by Kuhn who states that paradigm shifts represent a new way of looking at the same events within a new, unique framework.

Written journals have always allowed the readers to access knowledge in their own domains without some of the time restrictions of other means information gathering. An individual can carry a written journal from one place to another and read it at will. However, ejournals allow for a different bending of the time-space concept. For example in OJIN , fluidity of thought and ideas can be seen when the specific issues relating to nursing can continue to be revisited and addressed without regard to the limitations of time that is present in the printed journals. Individuals can add to the body of knowledge of each issue as it changes just by writing a new article or letter to the editor. The advancement of knowledge and historical development of the issue can be chronologically recorded in ejournals in a way that has never been possible with the constraints of a written journal. The absence of page and space restrictions also adds another dimension to the limited two dimensionality of the printed journal, but it does not represent a significant shift in the essence of knowledge that is characteristic of Kuhn's scientific revolution.