Examining public acquisition of science knowledge from social media in Singapore: an extension of the cognitive mediation model

ABSTRACT This study extends the cognitive mediation model (CMM) by examining the role of social media in cultivating public science knowledge. A sample of 901 Singaporeans was collected through an online survey panel. The results showed that the CMM could be applied to a social media context with a focus on science literacy. Specifically, the findings indicated that people with higher levels of surveillance gratification and social utility motivations tended to pay more attention and to elaborate more about science news that they encounter on social media. Likewise, people with greater social utility motivation tended to engage in greater interpersonal discussions on social media. Notably, attention to news on social media had an indirect association with science knowledge through news elaboration and interpersonal discussion on social media. Implications for theory and practice for science communication were discussed.

[1]  S. Ho.  The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis in Singapore: The Roles of Socioeconomic Status, Mass Media, and Interpersonal Discussion on Public Knowledge of the H1N1 Flu Pandemic , 2012 .

[2]  G. Ray Funkhouser,et al.  Communicating Specialized Science Information to a Lay Audience , 1971 .

[3]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[4]  D. Brossard.  New media landscapes and the science information consumer , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[5]  Rizal Setya Perdana.  What is Twitter , 2013 .

[6]  P. Lazarsfeld,et al.  6. Katz, E. Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications , 1956 .

[7]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Science, New Media, and the Public , 2013, Science.

[8]  Shelly Chaiken,et al.  Working Knowledge, Cognitive Processing, and Attitudes: On the Determinants of Bias , 1996 .

[9]  Victoria L. Crittenden,et al.  We're all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem , 2011 .

[10]  S. Chaffee,et al.  Measurement and Effects of Attention to Media News , 1986 .

[11]  Shirley S. Ho,et al.  The perceived familiarity gap hypothesis: examining how media attention and reflective integration relate to perceived familiarity with nanotechnology in Singapore , 2015, Journal of Nanoparticle Research.

[12]  Chei Sian Lee,et al.  News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience , 2012, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[13]  Jakob D. Jensen.  Knowledge Acquisition Following Exposure to Cancer News Articles: A Test of the Cognitive Mediation Model , 2011 .

[14]  A. Rubin.  Television uses and gratifications: The interactions of viewing patterns and motivations , 1983 .

[15]  Jane B. Singer,et al.  Participatory Journalism - Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers , 2011 .

[16]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Community, Communication, and Participation: The Role of Mass Media and Interpersonal Discussion in Local Political Participation , 1999 .

[17]  William A. Galston,et al.  Political Knowledge, Political Engagement, and Civic Education , 2001 .

[18]  S. Keeter,et al.  What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters , 1996 .

[19]  Clarissa C. David.  Learning Political Information From the News: A Closer Look at the Role of Motivation , 2009 .

[20]  Christopher E. Beaudoin.  The internet's impact on international knowledge , 2008, New Media Soc..

[21]  F. Craik,et al.  Depth of processing and the retention of words , 1975 .

[22]  P. Lazarsfeld,et al.  Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications , 1956 .

[23]  Michael Bosnjak,et al.  Methods for Probability-Based Online and Mixed-Mode Panels , 2016 .

[24]  J. P. Eveland.  The Effect of Political Discussion in Producing Informed Citizens: The Roles of Information, Motivation, and Elaboration , 2004 .

[25]  E. W. Lee,et al.  Staying abreast of breast cancer: examining how communication and motivation relate to Singaporean women's breast cancer knowledge , 2015 .

[26]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Examining Differential Gains from Mass Media and their Implications for Participatory Behavior , 2002, Commun. Res..

[27]  Sang-Won Lee,et al.  On social Web sites , 2010, Inf. Syst..

[28]  N. Lee,et al.  Word of mouth communication within online communities: Conceptualizing the online social network , 2007 .

[29]  Brandon Van Der Heide,et al.  Social Media as Information Source: Recency of Updates and Credibility of Information , 2014, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[30]  Teresa Correa,et al.  Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users' personality and social media use , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[31]  Hosung Park,et al.  What is Twitter, a social network or a news media? , 2010, WWW '10.

[32]  Homero Gil de Zúñiga,et al.  Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, Civic Engagement and Political Participation , 2012, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[33]  D. McQuail.  Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction , 1983 .

[34]  D. Mark,et al.  Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology , 1995 .

[35]  Mira Sotirovic, Jack M. McLeod.  Values, Communication Behavior, and Political Participation , 2001 .

[36]  Ven-Hwei Lo,et al.  Self-efficacy, information-processing strategies, and acquisition of health knowledge , 2013 .

[37]  William P. Eveland,et al.  Moving beyond “Just the Facts” , 2004, Commun. Res..

[38]  Daniel G. McDonald,et al.  BEYOND SIMPLE EXPOSURE , 1985 .

[39]  N. Cowan.  Activation, attention, and short-term memory , 1993, Memory & cognition.

[40]  William P. Eveland.  News Information Processing as Mediator of the Relationship between Motivations and Political Knowledge , 2002 .

[41]  Terra Ziporyn,et al.  Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science 1910-1955 , 1991 .

[42]  Kristina Lerman,et al.  Social Information Processing in Social News Aggregation , 2007, ArXiv.

[43]  Kristina Lerman,et al.  Social Information Processing in News Aggregation , 2007, IEEE Internet Computing.

[44]  R. Lance Holbert,et al.  The role of communication in the formation of an issue-based citizenry , 2002 .

[45]  A. Hermida,et al.  SHARE, LIKE, RECOMMEND , 2012 .

[46]  Kyu S. Hahn,et al.  Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use , 2009 .

[47]  Linda G. Kimmel,et al.  Adult Science Learning from Local Television Newscasts , 2006 .

[48]  Lynn D. Dierking,et al.  Investigating public science interest and understanding: evidence for the importance of free-choice learning , 2007 .

[49]  Louis Leung,et al.  Generational differences in content generation in social media: The roles of the gratifications sought and of narcissism , 2013, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[50]  Ronald C. Tobey,et al.  Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science 1910-1955 , 1992 .

[51]  S. Dunwoody,et al.  An Investigation of Elaboration and Selective Scanning as Mediators of Learning From the Web Versus Print , 2002 .

[52]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Tweeting nano: how public discourses about nanotechnology develop in social media environments , 2013, Journal of Nanoparticle Research.

[53]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Relation of a test of attention to road accidents. , 1973 .

[54]  Vinciane Colson.  Science blogs as competing channels for the dissemination of science news , 2011 .

[55]  Xinshu Zhao,et al.  Political Knowledge and the Campaign Media of 1992 , 1994 .

[56]  E. W. Lee,et al.  The Augmented Cognitive Mediation Model: Examining Antecedents of Factual and Structural Breast Cancer Knowledge Among Singaporean Women , 2016, Journal of health communication.

[57]  Rosaleen Love,et al.  Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science 1910-1955 by Marcel C. LaFollette (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1990), pp. ix + 260, $US17.95, ISBN 0-226-46779-1 (Pbk) , 1991 .

[58]  Alison A. Plessinger,et al.  Exploring Receivers' Criteria for Perception of Print and Online News , 1999 .

[59]  Heather Boyd,et al.  Who learns preventive health care information from where: cross-channel and repertoire comparisons. , 1998, Health communication.

[60]  John T. Cacioppo,et al.  The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion , 1986, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.

[61]  Daniel G. McDonald.  Media Orientation and Television News Viewing , 1990 .

[62]  Dominique Brossard,et al.  Coverage of emerging technologies: A comparison between print and online media , 2012, New Media Soc..

[63]  J. Falk,et al.  Lessons Without Limit: How Free-Choice Learning Is Transforming Education , 2002 .

[64]  T. Tyler,et al.  The mass media and judgments of risk: Distinguishing impact on personal and societal level judgments. , 1984 .

[65]  Wilhelmina C. Savenye,et al.  Effects of learner control, advisement, and prior knowledge on young students' learning in a hypertext environment , 1994 .

[66]  Dhavan V. Shah,et al.  Campaign Ads, Online Messaging, and Participation: Extending the Communication Mediation Model , 2007, Journal of Communication.

[67]  A. Rubin,et al.  Audience Activity and Television News Gratifications , 1987 .

[68]  William P. Eveland,et al.  Is It Talking, Thinking, or Both? A Lagged Dependent Variable Model of Discussion Effects on Political Knowledge , 2006 .

[69]  J. W. Rigney.  Learning Strategies: A Theoretical Perspective , 1978 .

[70]  A. Kaplan,et al.  Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media , 2010 .

[71]  David M. Dozier,et al.  Uses and Gratifications Motives as Indicators of Magazine Readership , 1988 .

[72]  Steven H. Chaffee,et al.  Learning about Politics from the Mass Media , 1997 .

[73]  B. Muthén,et al.  Assessing Reliability and Stability in Panel Models , 1977 .

[74]  Jon D. Miller.  The measurement of civic scientific literacy , 1998 .

[75]  James C. Anderson,et al.  STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PRACTICE: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDED TWO-STEP APPROACH , 1988 .

[76]  Dietram A. Scheufele,et al.  Factors influencing public risk–benefit considerations of nanotechnology: Assessing the effects of mass media, interpersonal communication, and elaborative processing , 2013, Public understanding of science.

[77]  Gerald C. Kane,et al.  The Contradictory Influence of Social Media Affordances on Online Communal Knowledge Sharing , 2013, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[78]  William P. Eveland.  The Cognitive Mediation Model of Learning From the News , 2001, Commun. Res..

[79]  Shirley S Ho,et al.  The Cognitive Mediation Model: Factors Influencing Public Knowledge of the H1N1 Pandemic and Intention to Take Precautionary Behaviors , 2013, Journal of health communication.

[80]  K. Kenski,et al.  Connections Between Internet Use and Political Efficacy, Knowledge, and Participation , 2006 .

[81]  Scott D. McClurg,et al.  The Electoral Relevance of Political Talk: Examining Disagreement and Expertise Effects in Social Networks on Political Participation , 2006 .

[82]  Ian S. Ginns,et al.  Development of knowledge about electricity and magnetism during a visit to a science museum and related post‐visit activities , 2000 .