Positive and negative media effects on university students’ learning: Preliminary findings and a research program

Abstract

Research in communication science highlights positive as well as negative effects of news and social media on learning but focuses predominantly on the largely unintended knowledge acquisition of the overall population. Research in educational science deals with students’ knowledge acquisition but is largely limited to formal learning such as in university courses. In this paper, we report findings of a pilot study combining both approaches by dealing with mass and social media effects on university students’ learning. While this study reveals several effects, their influences and causality remain largely unclear. Therefore, we propose a research program to explain positive and negative media effects on students learning in higher education in a more detailed fashion. In this program, we aim to combine various research methods like content analyses, panel surveys, mobile experience samplings, and experiments to uncover the mechanisms behind the emergence of positive and negative effects on learning.