Information behavior during the Covid-19 crisis in German-speaking countries
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2020-0217 |
| Published date | 23 August 2021 |
| Date | 23 August 2021 |
| Pages | 160-175 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Stefan Dreisiebner,Sophie März,Thomas Mandl |
Information behavior during the
Covid-19 crisis in
German-speaking countries
Stefan Dreisiebner
Department of Corporate Leadership and Entrepreneurship, University of Graz,
Graz, Austria and
Department of Information Science and Natural Language Processing,
University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany, and
Sophie M€
arz and Thomas Mandl
Department of Information Science and Natural Language Processing,
University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of the Covid-19 crisis at the level of individual
information behavior among citizens from the German-speaking countries, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Design/methodology/approach –An online survey was conducted among 308 participants gathered
through convenience sampling in April and May 2020, focusing on how citizens changed their mix and usage
intensity of information sources and according to which criteria they chose them during the Covid-19 crisis. A
Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for testing central tendencies. Effect sizes were considered to support the
interpretation.
Findings –The results show first that the Covid-19 crisis has led to an increased demand for reliable
information. This goes alongside a significant increased use of public broadcasting, newspapers and
information provided by public organizations. Second, the majority (84%) of the participants reported being
satisfied with the information supply during the Covid-19 crisis. Participants who were less satisfied with the
information supply used reliable sources significantly less frequently, specifically public television, national
newspapers and information provided by public organizations. Third, the amount of Covid-19-related
information led some participants to a feeling of information overload, which resulted in a reduction of
information seeking and media use.
Originality/value –This paper is one of the first to analyze changes of information behavior patterns of
individuals during crises in the current information environment, considering the diversity of resources used
by individuals.
Keywords Information behavior, Information media, Health information, Covid-19
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The disease Covid-19, caused by the beta coronavirus type SARS-CoV-2, was first described
at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and by January 2020 had
developed into an epidemic throughout the country. The first confirmed Covid-19 case in the
German-speaking countries was registered by January 27, 2020 in Germany and then on
February 25, 2020 in both Austria and Switzerland. On March 11, 2020, Covid-19 was
declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). To slow the spread of
the virus, far-reaching movement restrictions for all citizens were announced by the federal
JD
78,7
160
© Stefan Dreisiebner, Sophie M€
arz and Thomas Mandl. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This
article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-
commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of
this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 15 December 2020
Revised 23 July 2021
Accepted 27 July 2021
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 78 No. 7, 2022
pp. 160-175
Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-12-2020-0217
governments in Austria, Switzerland and Germany on March, 13, 16 and 22, 2020,
respectively. Where possible, employees were recommended to work from home. Special
precaution was recommended for people over 65 years and people with specific existing
health conditions, who were considered as high-risk groups for Covid-19 (Robert Koch
Institute, 2020). The Covid-19 crisis has led to a great demand for information. To date, large-
scale patterns have been observed, which show that global Internet traffic has increased as
well as the number of visits to news sites, in particular (Siddique et al., 2020). The New York
Times reported that in the USA, established national and regional newspapers received more
than twice as many visits in March than in February. In the same period, partisan and
polarizing sites received fewer visits (Koeze and Popper, 2020).
For the situation in the German-speaking countries, an increase in Alexa rankings of
several sites was observed. Regional public news channels greatly gained in popularity
between January and March as well as the website of the national public radio (DLF). On the
other hand, the Alexa popularity rankings dropped in the same time period for sites with less
recent information (e.g. Wikipedia) and even for general search sites (e.g. Google). Those
users searching on Google posed more queries on sites with reliable information (e.g. main
evening news programs, the Robert Koch Institute, RKI), as a look at Google Trends shows.
The WHO has warned that much health misinformation is being distributed concerning
Covid-19 and has referred to the pandemic as also being an infodemic (Richtel, 2020).
In this study, we investigate individual information behavior during the crisis. There have
been studies on information behavior and information dissemination for other crises.
However, the information ecology is constantly changing, and it seems necessary to analyze
the effect of the pandemic on the current information environment. The dissemination of
information in social media, and in particular on Twitter, has already been researched in the
first months of the crisis. However, the focus of such studies is mainly on big data and does
not reflect the diversity of resources used by individuals. We intend to show how citizens
change their mix and usage intensity of resources and according to which criteria they are
choosing their information sources. This leads us to the following research questions: (1)
Have citizens in the German-speaking countries changed their mix and usage intensity of
information sources in the Covid-19 crisis? (2) According to which criteria are they choosing
their information sources during the Covid-19 crisis?
Literature review
Information behavior refers to “those activities a person may engage in when identifying his
or her own needs for information, searching for such information in any way, and using or
transferring that information”(Wilson, 1999, p. 249). When searching for information is
conducted purposefully with the objective of finding information about health, it can be
defined as health information seeking behavior (Zimmerman and Shaw, 2020).
Media research in the German-speaking countries
Information behavior is related to media research, which focuses on “any form of
communication transmitted through a medium (channel) that simultaneously reaches a large
number of people”(Wimmer and Dominick, 2013, p. 2). There is a vast amount of research in
this area, including from the private sector, such as in-house research conducted by media
companies (Wimmer and Dominick, 2013). This review focuses on studies from the German-
speaking countries. An extensive longitudinal study is the ARD/ZDF study on mass
communication, conducted by the German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF since 1964. The
most recent study, conducted in 2019, found that TV and radio stations are facing increasing
competition from video streaming services. Germans between 14 and 29 years old are already
Information
behavior
during Covid-
19 crisis
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