Study on Information Needs of Rural Consumers Exploring Alternatives: A Study in the Indian Context

摘要

Accurate and timely availability of information has always played a vital role in the growth and development of mankind. In the present era of information technology, the search engines providing the service of information-on-demand cater a majority of information needs for a large section of population across the globe. Yet, even a larger section of the population belonging to rural as well as urban locations of the world are not benefited from the service due to lack of literacy and infrastructure. Better understanding of the information needs of people and devising alternate channels of information dissemination based on search engines can eventually lead to a socio-economic revolution among the rural as well as urban population of the world. In this paper, we try to study and understand various information types, frequency of search and available channels of information and their level of reliance among the rural population. The study further attempts to understand whether demand exists for 'information on demand' or search engine service itself would unlock a new untapped demand.