RECORDS AS FORCE MULTIPLIER: UNDERSTANDING THE RECORDS CONTINUUM AS A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING THE ROLE OF RECORDS IN A COMMUNITY

The central purpose of this dissertation is to examine an archival theory, the records continuum, to understand how the continuum highlights, reveals, or obscures qualities relevant to understanding community co-created records. Previous research related to the records continuum has been largely concerned with understanding the theory and with how records are created, captured, and organized using the continuum. \ud Relatively few studies have looked at how community records can be understood using the records continuum, or how those records can be read through the dimension of pluralization, when they are shared with a broader societal audience. To address this concern, this research looked at the active behavior of the administrative team for an online forum of active duty military officers in shaping and re-presenting the community using records created and built on the forum. Taking an exploratory case study approach, this research draws connections between thematic threads and forum posts written by members of the community, and later reuse and reactivation of those writings for a different, broader audience. A key finding is that values embedded and inherent in the community records creation process are hidden, or not explicitly measured or made visible by using a continuum approach. This is significant because it could pose a problem for future understanding of the situated context of the records that have been infused with values and shaped by their communities of creation. \u