Seeking news and information through social networking sites: An experience of internally displaced people

Abstract

This case study was designed to investigate the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for seeking news and information by internally displaced people (IDP). The study is guided by media dependency theory and related literature. Data were collected from 288 Iraqi internally displaced people (IDP) in four large camps through a survey questionnaire. The findings of the study reported how and why the respondents use SNSs for news and information and how much they trusted such platforms. Most of the respondents were found to depend on a variety of SNS media, old or new, to receive news and information, especially in times of crisis and conflicts. Such devices were very important for communicating with the families, news contributions, and news production.