Quantitative Research

Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists

This research conducted in 2002 at the Times of London.

Previous researches identified 8 information seeking characteristics such as surveying, chaining, monitoring, browsing, distinguishing, filtering, extracting and ending.

Simon Attfiefd and John Dowell with their work tried to describe a pattern about the information seeking by newspaper journalists and the process of their work as motivated by originality checking, personal understanding of an issue, information gathering and managing in an uncertain and constraint context. The findings were important, giving a clear view and description of the journalist's task and an account of what that job is. Based on the journalist's answers, the researchers obtained a clear insight on how an assignment starts, the constraints which derive from information originality and worthiness, the importance of personal understanding of an issue, how information are gather and managed and the implications when the angle of the initial hypothesis changes.

Interpretivism

The purpose of the research was to identify a general pattern the journalists use seeking information's rather than to confirm an existing hypothesis. Using exploratory research they have tried to identify the meanings of the actions and the concerns of 25 journalists .The outcome of the research could be classified as a basic research because the 2 researchers did not try to resolve a particular problem but their aim was the enhanced knowledge.

The research was based in inductive reasoning and the researchers tried to get general inferences from individual observations. Inductive analysis is common to qualitative analysis. The researchers tried to immerse in a group of journalists using in depth interviews, a common technique used in inductive