Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine what types of task information media scholars need while gathering research data to create new knowledge. Design/methodology/approach The research design is qualitative and user-oriented. A total of 25 media scholars were interviewed about their research processes and interactions with their research data. The interviews were semi-structured, complemented by critical incident interviews. The analysis focused on the activity of gathering research data. A typology of information (task, domain and task-solving information) guided the analysis of information types related to data gathering, with further analysis focusing only on task information types. Findings Media scholars needed the following task information types while gathering research data to create new knowledge: (1) information about research data (aboutness of data, characteristics of data, metadata and secondary information about data), (2) information about sources of research data (characteristics of sources, local media landscapes) and (3) information about cases and their contexts (case information, contextual information). All the task information types should be considered when building data services and tools to support media scholars' work. Originality/value The paper increases understanding of the concept of task information in the context of gathering research data to create new knowledge and thereby informs the providers of research data services about the task information types that researchers need.