Uses and Gratification

Peer Reviewed Article Vol.10(3) September 2008

Uses and gratifications of mobile Internet

among South African students

W. Chigona, G. Kamkwenda and S. Manjoo

Department of Information Systems

University of Cape Town

Rondebosch, South Africa

wallace.chigona@uct.ac.za

Keywords: Mobile Internet, uses and gratifications, South Africa

Received: 9 July 2008

Contents

1. Introduction

2. South African mobile phone market

3. Uses and gratifications framework

3.1 Background

3.2 Categories of motivations

3.3 Research model and questions

4. Research methodology

4.1 Research approach

4.2 Data gathering and analysis

4.3 Limitations of the methodology

5. Findings

5.1 General findings: overall mobile phone usage

5.2 General findings: mobile Internet

5.3 Uses and gratifications of mobile Internet

6. Discussion

6.1 Uses and gratifications of mobile Internet

6.2 Summary of implications

7. Conclusion and recommendations for future research

8. Acknowledgement

9. References

1 Introduction

Mobile Internet is a relatively new innovation. Many see mobile Internet as a way of

providing for those who cannot afford the traditional means of accessing the Internet

(International Telecommunications Union 2004). Although much research has been

conducted on the adoption of related technologies such as mobile phone and m-commerce,

little focus has been placed on mobile Internet. This is particularly true for South Africa

(SA). There is, therefore, a lack of understanding on how and why people use the

technology. The purpose of this research, therefore, was to investigate how and why people

use mobile Internet. This study focused on the SA market.

The topic for the study required the authors to define the term 'mobile Internet'. Mobile

Internet can best be described as a means of 'wireless access to the digitized contents of the

Internet via mobile phones' (Chae and Kim 2003). When the Internet is accessed, a request is

sent by an Internet browser to a Web...