Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
Mobile Information Seeking and Use in China: Is America Ready for Wechat?
Dr. Nancy Everhart
ABSTRACT:
Western societies often perceive that China limits the information seeking of its citizens. Foreign visitors, including academics, are concerned about the challenges of navigating the information landscape in order to function. Familiar applications such as Google and Facebook are forbidden but WeChat, the predominant mobile app in China, is used for wide range of functions including text and voice messaging, social media, games, banking, directions, and even university course management. In this autoethnographic study, data were collected in a diary on experienced feelings, cognitions, behavior and social context in information seeking incidents in China over a six-month period to answer the research question: What strategies are employed in information seeking and consumption in China by an information professional? Utilizing Chatman’s theoretical framework of information poverty, which seeks to explain how often isolated populations search, consume, accept or reject information, diary entries were calculated and categorized. According to the four concepts of the theory information seeking and consumption in China was achieved first by deception, followed by situational relevance, secrecy, with few instances of risk-taking. The mobile app WeChat served in countless supporting capacities to help navigate the information landscape.
keywords: information seeking, China, librarians