Purpose

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the types and sources of information sought by older adults along with their motivations in the Midwestern United States.

Design/methodology/approach

Interviews were conducted with 30 older adults residing in rural communities around the Midwestern United States during late-summer (July/August) 2020, using a protocol based on Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology. The resulting data was analyzed using standard content analysis procedures, guided by the theoretical frameworks based on Dervin's Sense-Making and Williamson's Ecological Model of Information Behavior. Implications of COVID-19 for the normative behaviors described in these models are discussed.

Findings

Findings show that older adults were concerned primarily with health and political information during this period, but that this information was not necessarily sought only to address an informational need, but also to satisfy the need to maintain social and emotional connections in coping with isolation and loneliness. Sources of information that allowed for social interaction with people were favored. Wider personal networks (community members) were strained by the social distancing measures and closures. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for considering the impact of social restrictions on information seeking behaviors of older adults in a time of crisis.

Originality/value

This study is the first, known to the authors, that applied the two adopted theoretical frameworks to explore information seeking behaviors of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

中文翻译：

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探索 COVID-19 大流行期间农村老年人的信息搜索

目的

这项研究调查了 COVID-19 大流行对美国中西部老年人寻求的信息类型和来源的影响以及他们的动机。

设计/方法/方法

在 2020 年夏末（7 月/8 月）期间，使用基于德文的 Sense-Making Methodology 的协议对居住在美国中西部农村社区的 30 名老年人进行了采访。所得数据使用标准内容分析程序进行分析，并以基于 Dervin 的 Sense-Making 和 Williamson 的信息行为生态模型的理论框架为指导。讨论了 COVID-19 对这些模型中描述的规范行为的影响。

发现

调查结果表明，在此期间，老年人主要关注健康和政治信息，但寻求这些信息不一定只是为了满足信息需求，而且还要满足维持社会和情感联系以应对孤立和孤独的需要. 允许与人进行社交互动的信息来源受到青睐。更广泛的个人网络（社区成员）因社会疏远措施和关闭而变得紧张。这些发现对于考虑社会限制对危机时期老年人信息寻求行为的影响具有理论和实践意义。

原创性/价值

这项研究是作者所知的第一项研究，该研究应用了两种采用的理论框架来探索 COVID-19 大流行期间老年人的信息搜索行为。