Subtitles in News Explainer Videos and the Impact on Information Retention

Abstract

The redundancy principle of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning states that the use of subtitles in videos affects the storage of information in a person’s memory. Previous studies that tested this assumption were based on videos, tutorials, and presentations in academic settings. There is a gap in literature on whether this theory applies to news explainer videos which break down complex news topics for audiences. This study addressed this gap by showing a news explainer video with and without subtitles to two groups of participants, and by testing how much information they could recall in the short and long terms. The findings show that the use of subtitles has a minor negative impact on information retention in the long-term and not in the short-term. Another key finding is that the negative impact prevails even if subtitles are used in a non-native language or if people have high levels of prior knowledge about a topic. The results suggest it is better to avoid using subtitles in news explainer videos regardless of the characteristics of the audience to which the videos are shown.