MOTIVATIONS FOR ACADEMIC SOCIAL MEDIA USE: A QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITE DE GOMA (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO)

This qualitative case study examines why postgraduate students, research active staff and lecturers at Universite de Goma use social media for academic purposes, which platform affordances they mobilize, and how local constraints specifically episodic political instability in eastern DRC, limited library capacity, and high and intermittent mobile data costs mediate motive practice pathways. Data were collected by purposive maximum variation sampling and comprised 32 semi structured in depth interviews, four postgraduate focus groups and consensual, de identified artefact collection from course groups; analysis used reflexive thematic procedures with Uses and Gratifications(UGT) as a sensitizing framework and iterative inductive coding to surface context specific adaptations and governance tensions Raj et al. (2021), (Gruzd et al., 2023), (Mbegani et al., 2022).The study identifies five primary academic gratifications that drive social media appropriation (1) rapid information and resource access, (2) immediacy and low friction communication, (3) collaborative coordination and co construction, (4) scaffolds for self regulated study and motivation, and (5) professional visibility and networking and documents how each is enacted through affordances (pinned resources, threaded messaging, shared folders) within a low bandwidth ecology shaped by instability and affordability constraints (Al-Kathiri et al., 2024), (Mirembe et al., 2020), Fuchs (2022).