Why Do Arabs Share News Online? Motivations for Sharing News on Social Media in the Emirates

Abstract

Sharing news over social media (SM) has become an everyday practice among internet users all over the world. Despite the potential importance of news-sharing, little is known about this phenomenon in the Arab region. The news-sharing literature and Uses and Gratifications approach form the theoretical framework of the current research which examines the tendency of news-sharing on SM and its motivations among Emiratis and Arabs residents in the United Arab Emirates. It also explores the correlation between motivation and topics shared on SM. It investigates the difference in news-sharing and motivational factors among the demographic groups, mainly gender, age, nationality and level of education. A convenient sample of 324 respondents filled an online constructed questionnaire. Factor analysis revealed four motivational factors that stimulate respondents to share news through SM. A positive significant correlation between news-sharing and both ‘status-seeking’ and ‘social responsibility’ was found. The correlation was non-significant between news-sharing and both ‘socialising’ and ‘dissemination of information’. These factors significantly correlate positively with the type of topics that the Arab respondents share on SM. There is no significant difference between males and females in the news-sharing motivational factors except in the category of ‘socialising’, which is higher in the mean value among females than males. Emiratis have higher mean values in all news-sharing motivations as compared to Arab expats.