Abstract
This study reports the results of investigating the information behavior of print media journalists in the city of Rashahi, Bangladesh. It attempts to identify how successful the journalists are in finding information and what information sources are preferred. The Internet was the most frequently used information source. The study also tried to explore the information services required by journalists from libraries and information centres. This paper suggests that journalism schools may include courses in their curriculum about information behavior, types of information, various types of information sources, information retrieval, search strategies, etc.
Introduction
The information behavior of individuals or groups depends on various factors such as educational qualifications, profession, individual knowledge, age, gender, region, socio-economic condition, religion, and even weather. Information seeking is an activity through which individuals satisfy their information needs, or fill gaps in their knowledge. One of the main factors that influence the information needs and information seeking behavior of individuals is their profession. Campbell (1997) pointed out that journalists are unique in the ways in which they search for information, due to the nature of the news process. The method by which journalists construct news reports precludes them from spending an elaborate amount of time evaluating the best possible sources of information.
After the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, the government patronized some newspapers to contribute to the country’s development. After the 1990s, the proliferation of newspapers in Bangladesh brought a revolutionary change in journalism. At present, newspapers play a crucial role in Bangladesh regarding democracy, human rights, women empowerment, economical and political development, anti-terrorism, and so on. Journalism professionals have the responsibility to publish true and authentic news to the people. For this they need information, have to seek information from various sources, and have to select the most reliable and convenient sources.
Review of related literature
Edem (1993) conducted a survey of 140 Nigerian journalists to outline their information needs and information seeking behavior patterns. The analysis showed that over 70 percent of Nigerian journalists were unaware of their information needs, while only 24 percent used library and archival resources. The study suggested “aggressive user education” on library and archival resources for trainee journalists and the use of modern electronic equipment for acquisition, storage and dissemination of information.
Vreekamp (1995) focused on the information seeking attitudes of journalists working in Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean, and Zeeland, a province of the Netherlands. The researcher found that journalists in these settings had information seeking attitudes that reflected the parochial attitudes of the communities in which they lived. Consequently, the information behaviors of journalists perceived to be ‘insiders’ relied heavily on established ties to the community, while those who were considered ‘outsiders’ were forced to be more creative in their attempts to secure information and to research their stories more thoroughly. Education was not a determinant of information seeking behavior, but age, gender and lifestyle, did affect some attitudes. One interesting finding was that journalists were hostile to, or just baffled by, arranged, indexed, pre-coded information. The majority of the respondents went into the library or the desk database only once a week or once a month.
Nicholas and Martin (1997) outlined a structure for analysing the information needs of newspaper journalists to enable data on users to be collected in a systematic and routine manner. They revealed that journalists needed information for five broad functions: fact checking, current awareness, researching, to obtain a context, and stimulus. They further considered the aspects of information need as: subject, nature, function, viewpoint, authority, quantity, quality, place of origin, speed of delivery, and processing/packaging. The barriers to meeting information needs included training, time, resources, access and information overload.
Poteet (2000) conducted a study on newspaper journalists’ information seeking behavior with online information sources at the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer in the USA. This study found that journalists frequently used online information sources. A majority of journalists believed that online sources were very important to information gathering in their work. More than 80 percent of journalists used email and the World Wide Web daily, although less than half searched internal or commercial databases weekly.
Attfield and Dowell (2003) conducted a study through unstructured interviews with 25 journalists working at The Times in London to investigate their information seeking and use. The researchers described the journalists’ information seeking as motivated by originality checking, developing personal understanding and discovering/confirming potential content. The study showed that journalistic work is uncertain as a function of uncertain content and continually evolving plans, so the journalists used a wide variety of internal and external sources of information.
Anwar, Al-Ansari and Abdullah (2004) investigated the information seeking behavior of 92 Kuwaiti newspaper journalists using a self-administered questionnaire. Anwar and Asghar (2009) studied the information seeking behavior of 87 print journalists working in Lahore, Pakistan which was a replication of the study done in Kuwait. Both studies concluded that the journalists emphasized fact-checking, general and background information. They used both formal and informal sources of information. Personal collections, daily news diaries, human sources, press releases and the Internet were ranked high in terms of both importance and satisfaction. Both groups considered their information searching skills very important for their work and were willing to go through training if it were provided.
Abdulla (2006) examined the Internet-related information behavior of print journalists at the seven daily newspapers in Kuwait from three perspectives: access and Internet usage, evaluation and purpose, and information technology skills. The study showed that the World Wide Web, search engines and e-mail, were the three most popular applications used. Non-users of the Internet indicated that time was the major barrier preventing Internet use, followed by lack of training and knowledge. Promptness, convenience, and accuracy were viewed as the most important criteria for evaluating information found online. The Internet was found to be most important for finding difficult-to-find facts, the latest news to add to a story, and documents to cite. The results showed that print journalists in Kuwait were lacking efficient information behaviors in relation to the Internet and information technology.
Nasreen (2006) investigated the information needs and information seeking behavior of 185 media practitioners in Karachi, Pakistan. The study indicated that reports of various organizations, government departments, NGOs and assignment committees, etc. were the forms of information used and sought most often. Most of the practitioners required selective rather than exhaustive information. Libraries and the Internet were the most used channels of information used by all groups of practitioners.
Ansari and Zuberi (2010) studied the use of various information channels, the awareness of the existence of information sources, ways used for disseminating information and use of libraries among media professionals (TV, radio and newspaper) in Karachi, Pakistan. The findings indicated that libraries were the most used channel among newspaper and television professionals, while reference service and newspaper clipping service were the most favored information services in the library. The Internet was being used increasingly by media practitioners; however, its use was higher among newspaper practitioners than radio and television practitioners.
In a more recent study, Chaudhry and Al-Sagheer (2011) used Critical Incident Technique (CIT) to investigate the information seeking behavior of journalists in Kuwait. A total of 42 journalists of five Kuwaiti newspapers provided information about their last critical incident for finding information related to their journalistic assignments. Analysis of 42 critical incidents indicated that journalistic assignments were in four major areas: political, cultural business, and sports. In most cases, background information was the most frequently sought type of information. The Internet was the most frequently used information source, even though some journalists perceived that information available on various websites may not be very objective.
In Bangladesh there is a scarcity of studies on the information-seeking behavior of journalists. As far as we know, no work has been done on this topic. This paper is the first attempt to identify the information-seeking behavior of journalists in Bangladesh.
Objectives of the study
The main objective of this study was to identify the information behavior of print media journalists in Rajshahi divisional city, Bangladesh. The specific objectives of this study were:
to identify different types of information need of print media journalists
to find out their information seeking behavior
to identify various information sources and medias used by journalists to satisfy their needs
to explore the information services required by journalists from the libraries and information centres.
Methodology
The study on which this paper is based was carried out from May to July 2011. There are 27 national and 9 local newspapers circulated in Rajshahi. There are 124 journalists who are working in different national and local journals. The number of registered journalists in three press clubs situated in Rajshahi City Corporation is 83. There are another 41 registered journalists who are working in the Rajshahi University. Out of 124 journalists, 60 were selected randomly using lottery method. A total of 60 questionnaires were distributed to journalists and 57 valid questionnaires were collected – a 95 percent response rate. In addition, both structured and unstructured direct interviews with the respondents were conducted. The interviews were generally limited to less than half an hour and were conducted in Bengali.
Data analysis and interpretation
Demographic information of respondents
Among 57 respondents, 45 (79 percent) were male and 12 (21 percent) were female. As regards their age, 44 percent of respondents were less than 27 years old, 16 percent were aged between 27 and 34, 17 percent were from the age group of 35 to 42, 11 percent from the age group of 43 to 50, and 12 percent were more than 50 years old. Twenty-eight percent of respondents had a master’s degree, 54 percent had a bachelor degree, 16 percent had higher secondary degree, and 2 percent had only secondary school certificate.
Professional characteristics of respondents
Asked whether or not they had received formal training in journalism, 60 percent had received such training while the rest of the participants had not. Almost all the respondents (95 percent) were involved with daily newspapers, while 4 percent were working with weekly newspapers, and only 2 percent with fortnightly newspapers. None of the respondents was engaged with a monthly newspaper. Forty percent of the journalists had less than 3 years of working experience in print media journalism, while 35 percent had 3 to 4 years experience, 4 percent had 5 to 6 years experience, 9 percent respondents had 7 to 8 years experience, and only 12 percent had more than 8 years experience.
Twelve percent of the respondents spent less than 2 hours daily in collecting news, 33 percent spent 2 to 3 hours, 23 percent spent 3 to4 hours, and the remaining 32 percent spent more than 4 hours daily collecting news. Only 56 percent of the respondents were satisfied with their working environment; the remaining 44 percent) were not satisfied. Most of the respondents (74 percent) received feedback from the general public, while only just over half (51 percent) attended press club activities regularly.
Only 5 percent of the respondents thought that print media had full freedom in Bangladesh, while 88 percent respondents found partial freedom in their work and 7 percent did not find any freedom in their work at all.
Table 1 demonstrates that 72 percent of the respondents reported news on crime, followed by 54 percent on sports, 51 percent on culture, 44 percent on politics, 37 percent on agriculture, 33 percent on business, 28 percent on religion, and about 16 percent on other matters.
Types of news reported by the journalists. (multiple responses)
Information needs of journalists
Table 2 reveals that the highest percentage of the respondents (88 percent) needed information on facts, followed by information on news (67 percent), statistical data (35 percent), point of view (23 percent), technological statistics (16 percent), and other topics (9 percent).
Types of information needed. (multiple responses)
Purposes of seeking information
It was found that about 88 percent of the respondents sought information to write news, while 37 percent looked for information to write feature articles, 19 percent journalists sought information to write columns and 14 percent needed information to edit news. Only 7 percent needed information to write essays, 4 percent needed information to write editorials and 2 percent sought information for other purposes.
Purposes of information seeking. (multiple responses)
Frequency of using information
The study showed that 56 percent of the journalists used information daily for their professional work, while 12 percent used information once a week, and only 2 percent used information monthly. However, 30 percent of the respondents said they used information all the time.
Frequency of using information
Information sources used
Only just over half of the respondents (53 percent) read periodicals related to their professional work, while 68 percent used electronic media for collecting information. Of the 57 participants, 81 percent went to the spot for collecting information while the remainder did not.
Table 5 shows that most of the journalists (82 percent) used the Internet as a source of information, while 63 percent of the respondents depended on press releases, 49 percent on television, 12 percent each on libraries and conversations, 11 percent on radio, 7 percent on their personal collections, and 5 percent on others media.
Sources of information used (multiple responses)
Satisfaction with the sources of information used
The journalists were asked how satisfied they were with the sources of information they use. Only 2 percent were highly satisfied; 77 percent were moderately satisfied, 18 percent were less satisfied, and 4 percent were not satisfied with their current sources of information.
Level of satisfaction with information sources
Problems of seeking information
People from different disciplines were engaged in this profession. They were facing different types of problems while seeking information for their daily work.
Problems of seeking information (multiple responses)
Most of the journalists (79 percent) thought that lack of sufficient time was the main problem encountered in seeking information, followed by lack of training (26 percent), the information explosion (21 percent) and lack of cooperation from library staff (16 percent). Nine percent of respondents found other problems in seeking information, while 4 percent journalists identified lack of access to international information sources as a problem.
Frequency of using library
The journalists working in Rajshahi divisional city generally used public libraries and academic libraries in the city. The respondents were asked to indicate how often they used a library. Table 8 reveals that only 4 percent went to a library daily, 14 percent went once a week, and the largest group (62 percent) went to a library ‘sometimes’. However, 22 percent never went to a library to meet their information needs.
Frequency of using library
Types of library services used by the journalists
The highest proportion of the respondents (61 percent) went to libraries for reference service, followed by reading room service (49 percent), news clipping service (40 percent), lending service (32 percent), translation service (23 percent), lists of new books (16 percent) and interlibrary loan (4 percent).
Types of library services used (multiple responses)
Discussions and conclusion
As in most other professions in Bangladesh, males were in the majority in journalism. Most of the respondents had less than 5 years work experience, because it was mostly young people who were engaged in print media. Only 60 percent of the respondents had had training in journalism. Slightly less than one third of the journalists spent more than 4 hours daily for collecting news, but most of the respondents thought that lack of sufficient time was the main obstacle in seeking information. About half of them did not attend press club activities regularly.
Although the government of Bangladesh has declared that mass media have full freedom in Bangladesh, only 5 percent of the respondents fully agreed with this view.
The respondents needed information on a wide variety of topics and sought information for various purposes. The Internet has become the main source of information, but respondents also depended for information on other media like press releases, television and radio. However, more than 80 percent of them went to collect information on the spot. Although most of the respondents were moderately satisfied with their sources of information, they also experienced a number of problems like lack of time, lack of training, the information explosion, and lack of access to international information sources. More than half of the journalists sometimes went to the nearest library for various library services but did not always get cooperation from the staff.
Journalists need information daily for their work, but lack authentic and reliable sources of information in Bangladesh. Lack of professional training is also one of their main problems. Training on using the Internet, the different types of library services, and other sources of information is highly necessary for them. Libraries are the most reliable sources of both current and retrospective information, but their staff need to be helpful to all types of professionals, including journalists. Public libraries, in particular, can provide various special services to the journalists such as news clipping service, periodical service, indexing and abstracting service, reference service, etc., and public librarians can take the initiative in creating awareness about their services among different types of professionals. As journalists have to have information for their daily work, journalism schools should include courses in their curriculum on information behavior, types of information, various types of information sources, information retrieval, search strategies, etc.