The Public's Dependency on Social Media during Crises with The Application to The Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The study seeks to identify the extent to which the public within the UAE depend on social media during crises by applying to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the light of the assumption of increasing the importance of relying on the media in times of crisis, and the role that information can play in informing the public of what is happening in their social environment. The study was applied to a deliberate sample of (400) respondents, and concluded several results as follows; The superiority of social media as a source of information, Arab satellite channels, then social media, then the Internet came at the forefront of the sources of information that the study sample relied on during the Covid-19 crisis. The results of the study indicate that the goal of understanding came at the forefront of the sample goals, followed by the goal of guidance and then the goal of entertainment. Reliance on social media does not necessarily mean the excellence of its media coverage. But it may be due to the public’s desire to know the developments of the crisis and the different visions of how to confront it.