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

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.     

The effect of plot explicit,educational explicit,and implicit inference information and coviewing on children's internal and external cognitive processing

Parental coviewing – the act of being present when a child is watching television – can influence the child’s cognitive processing and emotional reactions. This study investigated the role coviewing has on the child’s cognitive processing – which is evidenced by the phasic psychophysiological orienting response to three types of information: plot explicit, educational explicit, and implicit inference. An experiment was conducted that measured the heart rate of children (N?=?88; mean age?=?9.12 years) while watching messages either with or without a parent present in the room. It was predicted, and found, that coviewing leads to greater resource allocation to encoding the message – as indicated by phasic cardiac deceleration, and that information that required internal processing, such as plot explicit or implicit inferential content, leads to greater resources allocated to internal processing – as indicated by phasic cardiac acceleration. Implications for parental mediation strategies and educational television programming are given.     

A cross-cultural comparison of cognitive and affective mediators in the relationship between media use and body image disturbance: focusing on US and Korean women

This study examined whether the relationship between cumulative thin-ideal media and body image disturbance is mediated by (1) cognitive variables, including beliefs about normative thinness and thinness prevalence and (2) affective variables, including dejection and agitation. Also, this study tested whether mediating effects would be different across cultures. Results revealed that perception about normative thinness mediated the relationship between thin–ideal media use and body image disturbance among both US and Korean participants and the effect was stronger for Korean participants. Thinness prevalence estimation did not mediate thin-ideal media use and body image disturbance in either Korean or US participants. Dejection was a statistically significant mediator for the relationship between thin-ideal media use and body image disturbance for both Korean and US participants, but no cultural differences were found. Agitation was also a statistically significant mediator for thin-ideal media use and body image disturbance, but only for Korean participants. Cultural differences in mediating effects were explained based on individualism and collectivism.