From Information to Knowledge: Do University Students Learn News from Social Media?

Öz

The rise of online environments as an effective means of communication has radically changed the way in which news is accessed, consumed and shared. The rise of social media as a news-platform enriches our experiences of access to information and participation. This study examines the news consumption process of young users on social media with Eveland's Cognitive Mediation Model. This study aimed to reveal the relationship between random media exposure, participation in shared news content, cognitive refinement, and current affairs information and this research was carried out using 402 data collection tool. According to the results of the research, most young users pay attention to the news they encounter on social media as a part of their connection to digital environments that require online access. The results also show that social media capable of involving young users who are passively exposed to news mediate the relationship between news and information use.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Cognitive Mediation Model

Enformasyondan Bilgi’ye: Üniversite Öğrencileri Haberleri Sosyal Medyadan mı Öğrenir?

Öz

Çevrimiçi ortamların etkili bir iletişim aracı olarak yükselişi, habere ulaşma, tüketme ve paylaşma şeklini kökten değiştirdi. Haber platformu olarak sosyal medyanın yükselişi, bilgiye erişim ve katılım deneyimlerimizi de zenginleştirmiştir. Bu çalışma, genç kullanıcıların sosyal medyada haber tüketim sürecini Eveland’in Bilişsel Arabuluculuk modeli ile incelemektedir. Sosyal medyada habere rastlantısal maruz kalınması, paylaşılan haber içeriğine katılım, bilişsel ayrıntılandırma ve güncel olaylar bilgisi arasındaki ilişkileri ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlayan bu araştırma, 402 kişiyle veri toplama aracı kullanılarak gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmadan elde edilen sonuçlara göre, genç kullanıcıların çoğu, çevrimiçi erişim gerektiren dijital ortamlarla bağlantılarının bir parçası olarak sosyal medyada rastladıkları haberlere dikkat etmektedir. Ayrıca sonuçlar, pasif olarak habere maruz kalan genç kullanıcıları da dahil etme becerisine sahip sosyal medyanın, haber ve bilgi kullanımı arasındaki ilişkiye aracılık ettiğini ortaya koymaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Sosyal Medya
• Haber Tüketimi
• Bilişsel Arabuluculuk Modeli

Kaynakça

1. Ahlers, D. (2006). News consumption and the new electronic media. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11.(1), 29-52.
2. Barthel, M., & Shearer, E. (2015). How do Americans use Twitter for news. Pew Research Center, 1-7.
3. Bennett, W. L & Iyengar, S. (2008). A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication 58, 707–731.
4. Bergström, A. & Belfrage M. J. (2018). News in social media: incidental consumption and the role of opinion leaders. Digital Journalism, 6(5), 583-598.
5. Bode, L. (2016). Political news in the news feed: Learning politics from social media. Mass Communication and Society, 19(1), 24-48.
6. Boczkowskı, P., Mıtchelsteın, E., Matassı, M. (2017). Incidental news: How young people consume news on social media. Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
7. Cohen, M. A., James, N. & Mihailidis, P. (2013). Exploring curation as a core competency in digital and media literacy education. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2002). Research Methods in Education. New York: Routledge Falmer.
8. Costera M. I. & Groot K. T. (2015). Checking, sharing, clicking and linking: Changing patterns of news use between 2004 and 2014. Digital Journalism, 3(5), 664-679. Costera M. I. (2007). The paradox of popularity: How young people experience the news. Journalism Studies, 8(1), 1-22.

9. Dimitrova, D. V., Shehata, A., Strömbäck, J., & Nord, L. W. (2014). The effects of digital media on political knowledge and participation in election campaigns: Evidence from panel data. Communication Research, 41(1), 95–118.
10. Fletcher, R. & Park, S. (2017). “The Impact of Trust in the News Media on Online News Consumption and Participation. Digital Journalism, 5 (10), 1281–1299.
11. Greenhow, B. Y. C. & Reifman, J. (2009). Engaging youth in social media: Is Facebook the new media frontier? Neiman Reports, 63(3), 53–55.
12. Holt, K., Shehata, A., Strömbäck, J. & Ljungberg, E. (2013). Age and the effects of news media attention and social media use on political interest and participation: Do social media function as leveller? European Journal of Communication, 28(1), 19–34.
13. Holton, A. E., Coddington, M., Lewis, S. C. & De Zúñiga, H. G. (2015) Reciprocity and the news: The role of personal and social media reciprocity in news creation and consumption. International Journal of Communication, 9 (22), 2526–2547.
14. Kang, H., Keunmin B., Shaoke Z. & Sundar, S. S. (2011). Source cues in online news: Is the proximate source more powerful than distal sources?. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 88(4), 719-736.
15. Keum, H., Devanathan, N., Deshpande, S., Nelson, M. R., & Shah, D. V. (2004). The citizen-consumer: Media effects at the intersection of consumer and civic culture. Political Communication, 21(3), 369-391.
16. King, A. J., Jensen, J. D., Carcioppolo, N., Krakow, M. M., & Sun, Y. (2015). Comparing theories of media learning: cognitive mediation, information utility, and knowledge acquisition from cancer news. Mass Communication and Society, 18(6), 753–775.
17. Knoll, J., Matthes, J. & Heiss, R. (2018). The social media political participation model: A goal systems theory perspective. Convergence, 1–22.
18. Lee, H. (2012). Communication mediation model of late-night comedy: The mediating role of structural features of interpersonal talk between comedy viewing and political participation. Mass Communication and Society, 15(5), 647–671.
19. Lee, C. S. & Ma, L. (2012). News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 331-339. Lo, V. H. & Chang, C. C. (2006). Knowledge about the Gulf Wars - A theoretical model of learning from the news. Harvard International Journal of Press-Politics, 11(3), 135–155.
20. Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Kalogeropoulos, A., Levy, D. A., & Nielsen, R. K. (2017). Reuters Institute digital news report. Oxford, England: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
21. Nielsen, R. K., & Ganter, S. A. (2017). Dealing with digital intermediaries: A case study of the relations between publishers and platforms. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1600-1617.
22. Marchi, R. (2015). With Facebook, blogs, and fake news, teens reject journalistic “objectivity”. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 36(3), 246-262.
23. Metzger, M., Andrew, J., Flanagin, J. & Medders, R. B. (2010). Social and heuristic approaches to credibility evaluation online. Journal of Communication, 60 (3), 413–439.
24. Metzger, M., Flanagin J., Markov A. J., Grossman A. R. & Bulger, M. (2015). Believing the unbelievable: understanding young people's information literacy beliefs and practices in the United States. Journal of Children and Media, 9(3), 325-348.
25. Mindich, D. (2005). Tuned out—Why Americans under 40 don’t watch the news. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
26. Mitchell, A. & Page, D. (2015). The evolving role of news on Twitter and Facebook. Pew Internet and American Life Project. Retrieved from www.journalism.org/files/2015/07/Twitter-and-News-Survey-Report-FINAL2.pdf.
27. Oeldorf-Hırsch, A., Sundar, S. S. (2015). Posting, commenting, and tagging: Effects of sharing news stories on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 240-249.
28. Park, C. S. & Kaye, B. K. (2019). Mediating roles of news curation and news elaboration in the relationship between social media use for news and political knowledge. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 63(3), 455-473.
29. Pasquale, F. (2015). The black box society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
30. PublisherDaily (2018). Report: Facebook is Primary Referrer For Lifestyle Content, Google Search Dominates Rest. Retrieved from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/320542/report-facebook-is-primary referrer-for-lifestyle.html.
31. Shearer, E. & Gottfried, J. (2017). News use across social media platforms 2017. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/.
32. Shehata, A. & Strömbäck, J. (2018). Learning political news from social media: Network media logic and current affairs news learning in a high-choice media environment. Communication Research.
33. Sveningsson, M. (2015). It’s only a pastime, really’: Young people’s experiences of social media as a source of news about public affairs. Social Media + Society, 1(2), 1–11.
34. Toff, B. & Nielsen, R. K. (2018). I Just Google It: Folk Theories of Distributed Discovery. Journal of Communication, 68 (3), 636–657.
35. WeAreSocial&Hootsuite (2019). "Digital 2019". Retrieverd from https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates.
36. Yadamsuren, B. & Erdelez, S. (2010). Incidental exposure to online news. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 47(1), 1–8.
37. Yoo, W. S. & Gill-de-Zúñiga, H. G. (2014). Connecting blog, Twitter and Facebook use with gaps in knowledge and participation. Communication & Society, 27(4), 33–48.
38. Zhao, X., Leiserowitz, A. A., Maibach, E. W. & Roser-Renouf, C. (2011). Attention to science/environment news positively predicts and attention to political news negatively predicts global warming risk perceptions and policy support. Journal of Communication, 61(4), 713-731.