Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Multiscreening (using a device like a smartphone while watching TV) is pervasive and may have beneficial and detrimental consequences for informed citizenship. This national survey (N = 847) examines how multiscreening during debates and TV news during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign was related to political learning. Multiscreening was associated with higher levels of thinking about politics (elaboration) and greater confidence about knowledge (information efficacy) but lower actual knowledge. The positive relationship with efficacy yet negative relationship with knowledge raises the possibility that multiscreening contributes to overconfidence. Implications for cognitive resource theories are discussed.

Keywords

multiscreening political learning political knowledge elaboration political information efficacy

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aalberg

van Aelst

Curran

(2010). Media systems and the political information environment: A cross-national comparison. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 15, 255–271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161210367422

Armoudian

Crigler

A. N.

(2010). Constructing the vote: Media effects in a constructionist model. In Leighley

J. E.

(Ed.), The Oxford handbook of American elections and political behavior (pp. 300–325). Oxford University Press.

Banducci

Giebler

Kritzinger

(2017). Knowing more from less: How the information environment increases knowledge of party positions. British Journal of Political Science, 47, 571–588. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00007123415000204

Barabas

Jerit

(2009). Estimating the causal effects of media coverage on policy-specific knowledge. American Journal of Political Science, 53, 73–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00358.x

Barnidge

Gil de Zuñiga

Diehl

(2017). Second screening and political persuasion on social media. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 61, 309–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309416

Benoit

W. L.

Hansen

G. J.

Verser

R. M.

(2003). A meta-analysis of the effects of viewing U.S. presidential debates. Communication Monographs, 70(4), 335–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/0363775032000179133

Berkman

Kitch

L. W.

(1986). Politics in the media age. McGraw-Hill.

Bode

(2016). Political news in the news feed: Learning politics from social media. Mass Communication and Society, 19, 24–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2015.1045149

Brasel

S. A.

Gips

(2011). Media multitasking behavior: Concurrent television and computer usage. CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, 14, 527–534. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2010.0350

10.

Brasel

S. A.

Gips

(2017). Media multitasking: How visual cues affect switching behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 77, 258–265.

11.

Brophy

(2010). Motivating students to learn. Taylor & Francis.

12.

Cacciatore

M. A.

Yeo

S. K.

Scheufele

D. A.

Xenos

M. A.

Brossard

Corley

E. A.

(2018). Is Facebook making us dumber? Exploring social media use as a predictor of political knowledge. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 95, 404–424. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018770447

13.

Carrier

L. M.

Cheever

N. A.

Rosen

L. D.

Benitez

Chang

(2009). Multitasking across generations: Multitasking choices and difficulty ratings in three generations of Americans. Computers in Human Behavior, 25, 483–489.

14.

Chadwick

(2013). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford University Press.

15.

Chadwick

O’Loughlin

Vaccari

(2017). Why people dual screen political debates and why it matters for democratic engagement. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 61, 220–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309415

16.

Chaffee

S. H.

Kanihan

(1997). Learning about politics from the mass media. Political Communication, 14, 421–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846097199218

17.

Chaffee

S. H.

Schleuder

(1986). Measurement and effects of attention to media news. Human Communication Research, 13, 76–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.1986.13.issue-1

18.

Chaffee

S. H.

Zhao

Leshner

(1994). Political knowledge and the campaign media of 1992. Communication Research, 21, 305–324. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365094021003004

19.

Chen

H.-T.

(2019). Second screening and the engaged public: The role of second screening for news and political expression in an O-S-R-O-R model. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699019866432

20.

de Vreese

C. H.

Neijens

P. C

. (2016). Measuring media exposure in a changing communications environment. Communication Methods and Measures, 10, 69–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2016.1150441

21.

Delli Carpini

M. X.

Keeter

. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. Yale University Press.

22.

Dilliplane

Goldman

S. K.

Mutz

D. C.

(2013). Televised exposure to politics: New measures for a fragmented media environment. American Journal of Political Science, 57, 236–248. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00600.x

23.

Dimitrova

D. V.

Shehata

Stromback

Nord

L. W.

(2014). The effects of digital media on political knowledge and participation in election campaigns: Evidence from panel data. Communication Research, 41, 95–118. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211426004

24.

Drew

Weaver

D. H.

(1998). Voter learning in the 1996 presidential election: Did the media matter? Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75, 292–301. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769909807500205

25.

Duff

B. R. L.

Segijn

C. M.

(2019). Advertising in a media multitasking era: Considerations and future directions. Journal of Advertising, 48(1), 27–37.

26.

Eisinga

Grotenhuis

Pelzer

(2013). The reliability of a two-item scale: Pearson, Cronbach, or Spearman-Brown? International Journal of Public Health, 58(4), 637–642. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-012-0416-3

27.

Eveland

W. P.

(2001). The cognitive mediation model of learning from the news. Communication Research, 28, 571–601. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365001028005001

28.

Eveland

W. P.

Hutchens

M. J.

Shen

(2009). Exposure, attention, or “use” of news? Assessing aspects of the reliability and validity of a central concept in political communication research. Communication Methods and Measures, 3, 223–244. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312450903378925

29.

Geers

Bos

de Vreese

C. H.

(2017). Informed switchers? How the impact of election news exposure on vote change depends on political information efficacy. International Journal of Communication, 11, 1857–1878. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6063

30.

Geiger

A. W.

(2019, September 11). Key findings about the online news landscape in America. Pew Research Center. https://pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/11

31.

Gil de Zuñiga

Garcia-Perdomo

McGregor

S. C.

(2015). What is second screening? Exploring motivations of second screen use and its effect on online political participation. Journal of Communication, 65, 793–815. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12174

32.

Gil de Zuñiga

Liu

J. H.

(2017). Second screening politics in the social media sphere: Advancing research on dual screen use in political communication with evidence from 20 countries. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 62, 193–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2017.1309420

33.

Gottfried

J. A.

Hardy

B. W.

Holbert

L. R.

Winneg

K. M.

Jamieson

K. H.

(2017). The changing nature of political debate consumption: Social media, multitasking, and knowledge acquisition. Political Communication, 34, 172–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2016.1154120

34.

Groshek

Dimitrova

D. V.

(2011). A cross-section of voter learning, campaign interest and intention to vote in the 2008 American election: Did Web 2.0 matter? Communication Studies Journal, 9, 355–375.

35.

Huber

Gil de Zuñiga

Diehl

Liu

(2019). Effects of second screening: Building social media social capital through dual screen use. Human Communication Research, 45, 334-365. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqz004

36.

Jeong

Hwang

(2012). Does multitasking increase or decrease persuasion? Effects of multitasking on comprehension and counterarguing. Journal of Communication, 62, 571–587.

37.

Jeong

Hwang

(2016). Media multitasking effects on cognitive vs. attitudinal outcomes: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 42, 599–618. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12089

38.

Jung

Kim

Gil de Zuñiga

(2011). The mediating role of knowledge and efficacy in the effects of communication on political participation. Mass Communication and Society, 14, 407–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2010.496135

39.

Kahneman

(1973). Attention and effort. Prentice-Hall.

40.

Kaid

L. L.

McKinney

M. S.

Tedesco

J. C.

(2007). Political information efficacy and young voters. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 1093–1111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207300040

41.

Kruger

Dunning

(1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

42.

Lang

(2006). Using the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing to design effective cancer communication messages. Journal of Communication, 56, S57–S80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00283.x

43.

Maruyama

Robertson

S. P.

Douglas

Semaan

Faucett

(2014). Hybrid media consumption: How tweeting during a televised political debate influences the vote decision. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing (pp. 1422–1432). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531719

44.

McKinney

Chattopadhyay

(2007). Political engagement through debates: Young citizens’ reactions to the 2004 presidential debates. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 1169–1182. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207300050

45.

Mitchell

(2018, December 3). Americans still prefer watching to reading the news—and mostly still through television. Pew Research Center. https://www.journalism.org/2018/12/03

46.

Nee

R. C.

Dozier

D. M.

(2017). Second screen effects: Linking multiscreen media use to television engagement and incidental learning. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 23, 214–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856515592510

47.

Nielsen. (2018). Juggling act: Audiences have more media at their disposal and are using them simultaneously. https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2018/juggling-act-audiences-have-more-media-at-their-disposal-and-are-using-them-simultaneously.html

48.

Oeldorf-Hirsch

(2018). The role of engagement in learning from active and incidental news exposure on social media. Mass Communication and Society, 21, 225–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2017.1384022

49.

Paivio

(1986). Mental representations: A dual coding approach. Oxford University Press.

50.

Perloff

R. M.

(2018). The dynamics of political communication: Media and politics in a digital age. Routledge.

51.

Prior

(2003). Any good news in soft news? The impact of soft news preference on political knowledge. Political Communication, 20, 149–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600390211172

52.

Prior

(2013). The challenge of measuring media exposure: Reply to Dilliplane, Goldman, and Mutz. Political Communication, 30, 620–634. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2013.819539

53.

Ran

Yamamoto

(2019). Media multitasking, second screening, and political knowledge: Task-relevant and task-irrelevant second screening during election news consumption. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 63(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2019.1565659

54.

Ran

Yamamoto

(2016). Media multitasking during political news consumption: A relationship with factual and subjective political knowledge. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, 352–359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.015

55.

Rosseel

(2012). lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2), 1–36.

56.

Salvucci

D. D.

Taatgen

N. A.

(2008). Threaded cognition: An integrated theory of concurrent multitasking. Psychological Review, 115, 101–130. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.115.1.101

57.

Schaap

Kleemans

van Cauwenberge

(2018). Second screening for news: Effects of presentation on information processing and program liking. Computers in Human Behavior, 84, 76–85.

58.

Schunk

(1996). Goal and self-evaluative influences during children’s cognitive skill learning. American Educational Research Journal, 33, 359–382.

59.

Segijn

C. M.

Voorveld

H. A. M.

Vandeberg

Pennekamp

S. F.

Smit

E. G.

(2017). Insight into everyday media use with multiple screens. International Journal of Advertising, 36(5), 779–797.

60.

Segijn

C. M.

Voorveld

H. A. M.

Smit

E. G.

(2017). How related multiscreening could positively affect advertising outcomes. Journal of Advertising, 46(4), 455–472.

61.

Shehata

Stromback

(2018). Learning political news from social media: Network media logic and current affairs news learning in a high-choice media environment. Communication Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650217749354

62.

Slater

M. D.

(2004). Operationalizing and analyzing exposure: The foundation of media effects research. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81, 168–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900408100112

63.

Tewksbury

(2006). Exposure to the newer media in a presidential primary campaign. Political Communication, 23, 313–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600600808877

64.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2016). 2016 American Community Survey 1-year estimates. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/–services

65.

Vaccari

Chadwick

O’Loughlin

(2015). Dual screening the political: Media events, social media, and citizen engagement. Journal of Communication, 65, 1041–1061. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12187

66.

van Cauwenberge

Schaap

van Roy

. (2014). “TV no longer commands our full attention”: Effects of second-screen viewing and task relevance on cognitive load and learning from news. Computers in Human Behavior, 38, 100–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.021

67.

Voorveld

H. A. M.

van der Goot

(2013). Age differences in media multitasking: A diary study. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 57, 392–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2013.816709

68.

Wang

Irwin

Cooper

Srivastava

(2015). Multidimensions of media multitasking and adaptive media selection. Human Communication Research, 41(1), 102–127.

69.

Wang

Tchernev

J. M.

(2012). The “myth” of media multitasking: Reciprocal dynamics of media multitasking, personal needs, and gratifications. Journal of Communication, 62, 493–513. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01641.x

70.

Wei

(2008). News media use and knowledge about the 2006 U.S. midterm elections: Why exposure matters in voter learning. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 20, 347–362. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edn032

71.

Wickens

C. D.

(2002). Multiple resources and performance prediction. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 3, 159–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/14639220210123806

72.

Xenos

Moy

(2007). Direct and differential effects of the Internet on political and civic engagement. Journal of Communication, 57, 704–718. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.2007.57.issue-4

73.

Yoo

S. W.

Kim

J. W.

Gil de Zuñiga

(2017). Cognitive benefits for senders: Antecedents and effects of political expression on social media. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 94, 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699016654438

Thinking,Knowing,or Thinking You Know: The Relationship Between Multiscreening and Political Learning

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References