The attention of this study was to examine the contributions made by social media as “sources of information” to the newspapers in Tanzania. Specifically, the study examined the extent through which social media had contributed news stories for the selected newspapers in the country. The study also sought to determine the social media which had often contributed news stories to the selected newspapers. Lastly, the study, pursued to determine the contents and nature of the stories retrieved from the social media by the selected newspapers. This was a content analysis study which utilized documentary review of the three selected newspapers. Three newspapers of Mwananchi, Daily News, and the Citizen were purposefully selected for the study. A recording manual was designed and used during the documentary review and the unit of analysis included: hard news stories, soft news stories, column, editorial comment, features and sports stories. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data since the study carried qualitative data. The findings suggest that social media have played a significant contribution in providing news stories for the newspapers in Tanzania. It further suggest that, in all social media used, Twitter is the number one social media which provides more news stories to the newspapers in Tanzania. Lastly, the findings suggest that most of the news stories retrieved from social media were political stories, entertainment, and sports.
Keywords: Contribution, Newspapers, Social media, Tanzania, as sources of information
