The role of search engines vs social networks in news information seeking

Abstract

With the rise of social media in the 21st century predications are circulating around their role in replacing search engines as the primary source of finding news information online. This study aimed at examining this phenomenon, assessing the power of each platform in the area of news information retrieval and describing how both platforms are competing to attract internet users. The researcher also analyzed the different motivations and gratifications obtained from using each, while linking the study to the uses and gratifications theory.

A survey was conducted on a convenience sample of 402 Egyptian high internet frequency users to examine whether they relied on search engines or social networks to get their news online and the reasons why they do so.

The results of this study revealed that people are starting to depend more on social networks to look for news about things happening around them. The study also revealed that social networks and search engines are complementing one another rather than entirely competing. People are relying on each platform for different purposes: search engines are referred to more for following up on news, finding objective news, international news, and are seen as a quicker means of retrieving relevant news. Whereas social networks are used more often as alert systems for breaking news, for finding local news and news that their friends have shared, thereby increasing its relevancy and interest in reading it. The findings of this research indicate a positive correlation between surveillance and social motivations with regards to people's news information seeking activity. Also, it was interestingly revealed that Facebook is the highest ranked social network among the Egyptians surveyed and Google is the highest ranked search engine.

This research advanced with conducting qualitative interviews with experts and professionals, producing recommendations for future research as well as for search engines, social networks and news agencies in order to benefit more from the rising dependency of people on social media in Egypt as well as in the rest of the world as these platforms are of a global nature.