Journalists in the Sultanate of Oman and Social Media: Survey Study on Uses and Challenges
Abdullah Khamis Al-Kindi, Department of Mass Communication, Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman.
Suad Surur Al-Baluashi, Media Specialists in The Research Council,. Sultanate of Oman.
Abstract
This study aims to identify the extent of using social media among journalists in the Omani Arabic dailies, understand and recognize the connection of using social media in workplace as well as to identify the challenges that might affect journalists use of social media. The study adopting a descriptive survey method to all the data through formalization and distribution of questionnaires. The sample of this study is comprises of (176) journalists who are working in daily newspapers in the Sultanate of Oman namely: Alwatan, Oman, Al Shabiba, AZamn and Al roya.
The study concludes a set of results; most notablythose respondents are mostly preferring use Twitter, whereas the smart phones are mostly used by respondents to access social media. While Respondents mostly prefer to login to social media from home, one thirty of respondents are spend one to two hours using social media. The study also shows that social topics came on the top in the terms of sharing and following by the respondents.
Furthermore, the study shows there were no any training courses about how to deal with these social media. The results confirmed that only 26% of the respondents had specialized training in social media. This is beside the significant occupational burdens, the lack of devices with programs and the absence of Wi-Fi networks as main and prominent challenges that have been stated by the respondents, which reduce the benefit of these social media.
Keywords: Journalists’ Uses, Omani Newspapers, Social Media, Challenges.