Uncharted waters: How fishers taught us about "knowledge shading"
- Carolina Cuervo-Robert
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Written by Carolina Cuervo-Robert, Ph.D. candidate at Toulouse School of Management (France)
What happens when a consumer community built on sharing decides to hold back? A recent study published in IJRM delves into the delicate dance of sharing and hiding information through the lens of recreational fishing, uncovering a practice the authors call “knowledge shading”, defined by the strategic act of sharing some information while subtly concealing the rest.
Source: https://ganglers.com/mike-borger
A phenomenon that emerged from the data
The research began not with a hypothesis about secrecy, but with curiosity about crowdsourcing. Co-authors Aron Darmody, Mujde Yuksel and Meera Venkatraman, then colleagues, were exploring a platform called Navionics. Known as the “Google Maps of waterways”, it allows boaters and anglers to contribute sonar data and tips to improve communal maps. The authors’ original focus was the crowdsourcing aspect of the technology. But as they interviewed users, an unexpected pattern emerged. The platform thrived on information sharing, but surprisingly, its most dedicated users, fishers, appeared to be oddly secretive at times.
“This was used by a lot of fishers, which we hadn't intended going in, and it seemed that they were like the most interesting category of consumers. They had taken it on because it was a very useful resource as they need to know the water in a very intimate way, both above and below... But also, we sort of found out over time that they had a very interesting way in which they were distributing or not distributing their knowledge.”
-Aron Darmody
Fishers share general advice or vague locations but are guarded about their prized “spots”. This is not a simple attempt to gatekeep information, but a nuanced display of partial disclosure. The author team, by now also including Pierre-Yann Dolbec, coin the term “knowledge shading”, a blurry space between openness and secrecy that maintains social bonds, while protecting competitive advantage.
The particularities of the fishing context
The fishing context proves uniquely rich. The practice involves scarce resources (fish or prized fishing areas), protecting or showcasing personal performance, and a deep responsibility towards sustaining local ecosystems and the community’s future. These variables generate tensions between knowledge sharing and hiding. For instance, sharing precisely where one found a specific fish, along with the angling tools and technique used, might show performance progress, but it might also endanger one’s “claim” to the spot and even the local ecosystem. This is where the middle option, “shading,” proves useful.
However, shading information can come with backlash when the “shader” is insufficiently cautious. An extreme case involved YouTuber and angler Mike Borger, who was sued under Canadian FOI (freedom of information) for not disclosing a “jackpot” spot on one of his YouTube videos, stressing the high stakes of information shading.
“It was the perfect encapsulation of this issue, sort of brought to an extreme degree”
-Aron Darmody
What fishers teach us about marketing practice
For marketing practitioners, the insights extend beyond the stream. The findings are applicable to a variety of contexts, like influencers walking a line between mystery and information sharing with their viewers. There are also lessons to be learned for community management. As many brands now rely on user-generated content and community engagement, understanding the culture of information sharing practice is key. Platforms must navigate when to incentivize sharing, and when to allow for strategic retention, balancing individual motives to retain value with communal value co-creation.
“Marketers rely on this knowledge shading as well. […] You can think of platforms that exist because of peer-to-peer interactions. So, if you provide certain types of layers to that knowledge sharing or certain cultures around it, or there are like different functions that are incorporated within these platforms, you can increase the sharing aspect. Whether it's knitting or fishing you want to recruit constantly new consumers to the practice, so it doesn’t die out.”
-Mujde Yuksel
Lessons for researchers and anglers
Sometimes doing research can feel impossible: the ideas don’t fall together as you planned them to, the reviews are long and difficult, or simply, random life events like moving or a pandemic, throw up obstacles. However, Mujde and Aron made one thing clear: good research is like skilled fishing. It requires a sharp hook, or a strong idea, found through a mix of preparation and luck. It demands the perseverance to wrestle that idea to shore, and the humility to accept help from those who know the currents. It is a practice of constant adaptation, where failed casts and flawed designs are simply data for the next attempt. Both are profound exercises in patience, rooted in faith that the catch exists and the resilience to pursue it.
Read the paper
Want to cite the paper?
Darmody, A., H., Dolbec, P. Y., Yuksel, M., Venkatraman, M. (2025). Between sharing and hiding: How consumers shade knowledge. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Meet Aron and Mujde
If you were not a marketing researcher, what would you be?
Aron – In my case, I don't know what I'd be if I was not a marketing researcher. I think I might be working in some way in education. I don't know specifically, maybe not as a teacher, but I would think somehow my kind of career would have evolved in some way in that direction, but in in what context, in what way, I don't know specifically.
Mujde – I have a very unique background, I was actually a professional basketball player before academic career, so I'd probably be there. I would be in the management around that, so I would definitely see myself like working for FIBA (International Federation of Basketball) or, you know, ambitiously, for the Olympics too because sports was my life.
If you could have lunch with any researcher in marketing or any other field, who would it be and why?
Aron – My answer would be you [Mujde] because we used to be regular lunch mates and we worked together. I was in the interview process when she was actually in her campus day and then even we went for lunch as part of her visit. So, the fact that I’ve moved away, and I haven't been back to Boston since makes me miss that.
Mujde – Going back to my campus visits, right after the PhD, like 11 or 12 years ago, I remember it being a blur, it's like you meet with this person, that person, and then you present, you know, do a demo of this and that. So, you have to be always on your best behaviour, but always be yourself at the same time, too. So, you're, again, like having a nice balance there. And my fondest memory of that campus visit was actually having lunch during that day. It was like a breath like fresh air. That's just like my first memory of Suffolk but it was also our routine when we were um working together, so I would say Aron.
This article was written by
Carolina Cuervo-Robert
Ph.D. candidate at Toulouse School of Management (France)
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