The role of the internet in information seeking. Putting the networked services in context

The author explores the place of the internet among other sources and chann els in information seeking. Both qualitative and quantitative data were com bined in the study. In 1997, the author conducted 23 theme interviews in Ta mpere, Finland, Secondly, the data of the national survey on the use of inf ormation technology at Finnish households conducted in 1996, based on the i nterviews of 2360 persons, aged 10-74 yr, were utilized. Both the features of job-related and nonwork information seeking will be discussed; however, the emphasis is on the latter. The conceptual framework of the study draws on the findings of the studies of computer-mediated communication and the u ses and gratifications approach; the ideas of the 'media richness' theory a nd the 'social influence' theory are also utilized. Email and WWW appeared to be the most frequently used services in information seeking, but discuss ion groups and IRC were also utilized to some extent. The major research cr iteria for preferring the internet are the (relative) easiness of accessing a huge amount of data, savings in time and money, the opportunity to consu lt a number of experts simultaneously and a greater independence of certain time and place in information seeking. Thus far, the internet has not been able to supplant other sources and channels but rather complements them. T his is evident, for example, in the utilization of electronic newspapers in the search for orienting information. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All r ights reserved.