Young Egyptians’ Uses and Gratifications of Mobile News

This study was conducted to determine young Egyptians’ mobile news gratifications and to research the relationship between mobile and other media use and mobile news consumption. 23% of young people use mobile devices, and 22% social networks apps for news. According to (Incollingo, 2018) that  one of the most popular activities on mobile devices is news consumption. According to this result, young Egyptians in our sample group can be said to have the same activity on their mobile devices. Today, mobile news consumption with mobile devices and tablets have a widespread accepted (Chan-Olmsted, Rim, Zerba, & Quarterly, 2013; Struckmann, Karnowski, & Informatics, 2016; Westlund, 2015).
Due to the fact that audience members are mainly responsible for media selecting to gratify their needs according to uses and gratifications theory (Littlejohn & Foss, 2010). Studies used similar components to measure users’ gratifications, the uses and gratifications components consists of four dimensions, which are: information, discussion, entertainment, and surveillance (Masouras, Siakalli, & Papademetriou, 2015; Van Cauwenberge, d'Haenens, & Beentjes, 2010; Vincent, Basil, & Media, 1997). Along with this paper has introduced interactivity as a new dimension of mobile news gratifications, this dimension includes (Entertainment, and information seeking). Based on what have mentioned, the dimensions of uses and gratifications theory applied in this study include: 1) Interactivity; 2) Surveillance; 3) Social utility; 4) Escape.
The average of interactivity dimension was found at high level (4.26). a positive relationship was found between Mobile news consumption and gratifications scale with a high correlation for interactivity dimension (0.250). average mobile news gratifications were found at high level (from 3.58 to 4.39). young Egyptians have high scores at mobile news gratifications scale (60.5%) have high score (more than 103 from 135), and (8.9%) have very high score (more than 130 from 135).
The results of the study revealed that the percentage of interest in news by young Egyptians is high, nearly more than three quarters (82.6%) of the sample are quite interested in news, and (17.4%) very interested in follow news, On the question of “How young Egyptians get news?”, respondents stated that mobile phones are more convenient to obtain news, approximately nine in ten young Egyptians get news from mobile phones (93%). Another important finding was that social networks apps (eg: Facebook, Twitter) are the first source that young Egyptians access news from mobile devices (47%).
In general, the study has found that young Egyptians are increasingly associated with the use of mobile news, particularly smartphone applications are an emerging tool for young adults in Egypt to follow news.
Future research may expand on the list of relevant attributes to include different types of mobile news apps. For instance, social networks and news apps (eg: Nabd, Rasd) are more relevant to the mobility and immediacy nature of mobile news, and it will also be interesting to young news consumers to see how they vary in their use of mobile news. Utilizing Diffusion of Innovation Theory, one might also explore the benefits behind mobile news adoption. Finally, news consumption via social networks apps through either mobile devices or computers, and news credibility is another relevant area of investigation for this particular group of users.