768259

research-article2018
NMS0010.1177/1461444818768259new media & societyArceneaux and Dinu

Article

new media & society

The social mediated age

2018, Vol. 20(11) 4155­–4176
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1461444818768259
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information dissemination
in higher education

Phillip C Arceneaux
University of Florida, USA

Lucian F Dinu
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Abstract
Despite high levels of global connectivity, Americans are generally underinformed about
the world. The US Department of Education named social media as a viable option for
improving learning objectives, yet minimal research supports such a claim regarding
internationalization. While what research exists exclusively investigated Facebook, no
research explored the viability of other popular platforms, such as Twitter or Instagram.
Through an experimental design conducted on 405 college students, this study probed
how the presentation of textually based (Twitter) and visually based (Instagram) messages
affected American college students’ recall of digital information. It also investigated
how communicator credibility affected the way college students consumed digitally
disseminated information. Results showed that information retention was most improved
by visually based information published by professional news outlets. Such findings help
to better understand the contributions social media are capable of making as information
tools, particularly when applied to American post-secondary education.

Keywords
Agency, education, modality, social media

Corresponding author:
Phillip C Arceneaux, University of Florida, Weimer Hall 2016, PO Box 118400, Gainesville, FL 32611-8400,
USA.
Email: parcen1588@ufl.edu
4156 new media & society 20(11)

Introduction
Social media have led people across many societies and industries to reconceptualize
the impact of mediated information sharing at a global level (Lipschultz, 2017). At a
time when Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter can instantaneously transmit information
around the globe, there is an all-time high need for cross-cultural understanding
(Sawyer and Chen, 2012). Unfortunately, Americans are significantly below average
in the area of global competence, a necessary requisite to cross-cultural understanding
(Bornstein, 2017; Council on Foreign Relations, 2016; Hunter, 2004; The New York
Times, 1988).
Global competence, or global literacy (Council on Foreign Relations, 2016; Jacobs,
2013), was defined by Corbitt (1998) as the culmination of a person’s knowledge
pertaining to world politics, religion, economics, culture, geography, and environ-
mental issues. Others, more conceptually consider it a knowledge and humility that
allows individuals to appreciate the unique perspectives of other ways of life and to
interact with those ways of life through effective and unbiased communication
(Engaging the World, 2009; Schleicher, 2016). While humility may be a piece of
practicing global competence, having basic knowledge of the world aligned along
standard educational topics (Asia Society, 2011), as with Corbitt’s definition, is nec-
essary for being globally competent. Therefore, with a multitude of variables affect-
ing information consumption, such as information source and presentation, this study
sought to explore ways in which variations in social media might positively affect
information dissemination. Such knowledge can assist the American higher education
system in producing more informed and knowledgeable students, a prerequisite for
practicing global competence.
The first major US concern of global competence originated following the 1957
Russian Sputnik launch, and it has been a recurring issue for approximately 60 years
(Bornstein, 2017; Council on Foreign Relations, 2016; Hunter, 2004; The New York
Times, 1988). Much like Sputnik, 9/11 brought about an urgency for internationalization
that was particularly realized in the educational system (Bikson et al., 2003). In a time
where the United States faces numerous threats at home and abroad, the cost of being
ignorant to world issues is a price Americans cannot afford to pay (National Education
Association [NEA], 2010).
Due to humanity’s fast-paced consumption of natural resources and the interde-
pendence of global markets, civilization is now linked together as never before
(Couldry, 2007). Internationalization of curricula is a key goal of the United Nations
(Hunter, 2015), the US Department of Education (DoE, 2012), and the NEA (2010).
Internationalization is “the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or
global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education”
(Knight, 2002: 1). Although the DoE has spearheaded internationalization through
study abroad opportunities, studying abroad is not a reality for most students
(Andreasen, 2003; Chin, 2013; Nevadomski-Berdin, 2015). So, what alternatives
exist for educational internationalization other than studying abroad? A possible
answer, as the DoE outlined in the 2010 National Technology Plan, is social media
(US DoE, 2010).
Arceneaux and Dinu 4157

Literature review
Social media consist of modes of community communication confined to the World
Wide Web (Fuchs, 2017). Social media, typically consisting of social networking and
blogging sites, were specifically addressed as research showed as much as half of
Americans use one or both types of these channels (Greenwood et al., 2016; Maier,
2010). In linking social media with education, the NEA outlined the need to find more
effective ways to promote the international exchange of ideas, naming social networking
sites and weblogs as the means to achieve that goal. The NEA felt that in light of the grim
financial reality of study abroad programs, social media could intimately connect
American classrooms with global affairs through virtual exchanges (NEA, 2010).
The idea that social media could serve as a tool in education is based on research
showing that young adults use social media more than any other demographic (Coleman
and McCombs, 2007; Greenwood et al., 2016). Furthermore, approximately 85–95% of
students enrolled in college reported using social media (Davis et al., 2014; Hargittai,
2008; Pew Research Center, 2017). Moreover, more and more young people are using
social media, with a consumer population increase of over 25% between 2009 and 2014
(Parveen et al., 2015) and a net increase of 33 billion minutes of usage from 2011 to 2012
(Bala, 2014). Due to the intense psychological resources, college students put into social
media use, using these media in a constructive educational manner could be effective in
boosting learning outcomes (Junco, 2012). Furthermore, social media could blend edu-
cation with socialization and entertainment in just the right way to actively engage col-
lege students (Davis et al., 2014).
There has been a call for improved internationalization in the educational system, and
there is potential in applying social media to the problem, yet little research has studied
the effects of social media use on internationalization. One study positively correlated
global competence with the use of Facebook (Davis et al., 2014), thought it did not
explore the effects other social media sites may have on global competence as compared
to Facebook. Therefore, this study attempted to close the literature gap by investigating
the alternative platforms of Twitter and Instagram.

Conceptual framework
Younger adults generally use digital media to achieve personal gratifications through
information-seeking, entertainment, and the creation and/or maintenance of social con-
nections (Chen and Kim, 2013). Applying social media use to higher education would
theoretically allow educators to direct students’ needs for information-seeking toward
sources of appropriate information while blending this process with the added gratifica-
tion of social interaction and entertainment. While digital media are correlated with
changes in information processing (Narain, 2015; National Center for Biotechnology
Information, 2015), is it not plausible that social media platforms could be linked to the
way information consumption is taking place, per McLuhan’s (1964) “the medium is the
message” argument? To understand why we consume information, we must also under-
stand how we consume information, and what factors affect our consumption. There are
four affordances, or mechanisms, for achieving gratification specific to digital media
4158 new media & society 20(11)

usage, referred to in Sundar’s (2008) MAIN Model, that affect human information con-
sumption: Modality, Agency, Interactivity, and Navigability.
Attempting to better explain the relationship between affordances and rewards associ-
ated with digital information consumption, Sundar (2008) proposed the MAIN Model.
Sundar was interested in information quality, particularly the extent of its factual nature.
In this regard, he asserted a need for information consumers to verify the authentic iden-
tity, and thus credibility, of social media sources. Beyond communicator credibility, the
structure of digital messages has also been noted as affecting information consumption,
particularly among younger social media users (Sundar, 2008). In respect to electronic
media, Sundar equated the term “structure” as the manner in which a source creates the
presentation of digital content. “Cues embedded in, and transmitted by, the structure
(rather than content) of digital technologies are likely to be particularly salient to today’s
youth” (Sundar, 2008: 75). Social media, in particular, blend the textual and visual pres-
entation of digital messages and further the complexity of message structure by control-
ling how long or short messages can be. According to Sundar (2008), 30% of surveyed
participants mentioned “information design/structure” as playing a role in whether that
participant chose to consume information. As such, overall message effectiveness
through structure and communicator credibility should be staple issues when critiquing
the information dissemination process among younger demographics.
Surface credibility, or the nature of digital media users to judge information sources
based on the tangible representation of that given source’s public content, apply specifi-
cally to digital media use (Sbaffi and Rowley, 2017; Tseng and Fogg, 1999). Indeed,
Sundar (2008) explained that “… the first stage that a user goes through in judging the
credibility of online information is an evaluation of surface credibility, which involves a
consideration of such surface characteristics as appearance/presentation and information
organization …” (p. 76). This progression of thought was also given voice by Metzger.
“People rely most heavily on design/presentational elements for judging information
credibility and quality …” (Metzger, 2007: 2083). Furthermore, Hovland’s research laid
out a strong foundation for understanding communicator credibility in traditional media
formats (Lowery and DeFleur, 1983), yet research is necessary to determine the applica-
bility of such findings to modern digital communication formats.
While communicator credibility is a well-established area in communication scholar-
ship, message effectiveness is a more ambiguous term. As the purpose of this study was
to probe the potential for disseminating information via social media use in the academic
classroom, the operationalization of the term “message effectiveness” followed educa-
tional guidelines regarding technological integration in the classroom. Education schol-
arship has long been interested in boosting memory recall. Research shows that the
ability to recall information is dependent on three variables: the words used to convey a
message, the associations made among the parts of the message, and the context in which
the message was processed (Franklin and Mewhort, 2015). Impressing upon the educa-
tional interest in memory recall, the term “message effectiveness” was operationally
defined as the extent to which a particular message correlated to variances in memory
recall. Given that each part of memory recall can be modified through different commu-
nication channels, the framework of information presentation is highly important when
probing memory recall.
Arceneaux and Dinu 4159

Modality.  The first part of Sundar’s MAIN Model is modality. In this context, modality is
defined as the varying ways information can be physically presented (Sundar and Limp-
eros, 2013). Sundar (2008) showed that message structure affected “if” and “how” a user
chooses to process information, and while research by Davis et al. (2014) examined the
effects Facebook had on information processing, no research has explored the effects the
different message structures of Twitter and Instagram could have. Twitter emphasizes
textual stimuli while Instagram stresses visual stimuli. Although images can be attached
to tweets, and text added to Instagram posts, the essence of Twitter is textual while the
essence of Instagram is visual in nature.
When considering the importance message structure has on information recall, and
the two contrasting modes used by Twitter and Instagram, research by Sundar and
Limperos (2013) showed that intellectually processing text requires larger amount of
cognitive effort than does processing images. Research has also shown that the inclusion
of visuals lend to stronger degrees of cognitive association (Bowman and Hodges, 1999;
Kumari and Bharadwaj, 2017; Yuan et al., 2014), one of the three variables comprising
memory recall. Applying this literature to the information presentations of Twitter and
Instagram, this study asserted,

H1. A Visually Dominated Platform (Instagram) is more effective than a Textually

Dominated Platform (Twitter) in producing information recall.

Agency.  The second part of Sundar’s MAIN Model deals with agency. Agency allows
people to be creators of content rather than just consumers of it, transitioning mass audi-
ences from passive consumers to active users (Sundar and Limperos, 2013). The empha-
sis for creating content has become so powerful, typically among younger audiences,
that users tend to believe information more if it is linked to a casual social media user
(users), someone with whom the user has some kind of real or perceived relationship,
more so than if it was published by a professional news outlet (professionals) (Chen and
Kim, 2013).
The line of thinking is that while professionals potentially have certain agendas for
which they would wish to frame the news, an average user on the street has no ulterior
motive to want to try and frame information and therefore is more likely to be open and
honest in reporting the facts. This assertion is also supplemented by research suggesting
one of social media’s strongest gratifications is the sense of community it creates among
users (Flores et al., 2014). Thus, social media users are psychologically inclined by inter-
nal needs for gratification to believe peer users over professionals as a means to build
and maintain social support networks.
Thus, when real-time information is reported by both professionals and users, the
affordance of agency, or average people being original agents of information, suggests
that the typical young social media user might find the user, that is, a social peer, to be a
more credible information source than the professional. This affordance of digital agency
breaks the traditional two-step flow of communication by removing the media gatekeep-
ers from model and placing peer-to-peer communication as the primary focus of infor-
mation dissemination. Indeed, choosing to participate in such peer-to-peer communication
is a mechanism through which a sense of community can be forged, an affordance young
4160 new media & society 20(11)

people are predisposed to seek out (Flores et al., 2014). Following this line of research
by Sundar and Limperos (2013) and Chen and Kim (2013) that established younger
social media users as inclined toward user generated content, this study predicted,

H2. Information consumers would believe information created by a user more than
information created by a professional.

While Sundar’s (2008) MAIN Model consists of 4 unique affordances affecting digi-
tal media usage, this study served as an initial investigation into less traditional social
media as tools for information dissemination in an academic setting. Given such, it was
decided to break the MAIN Model into more manageable pieces for experimental inquiry.
While this study investigated modality and agency, future research on interactivity and
navigability is both necessary and planned.
Finally, while H1 probed message effectiveness and H2 probed communicator credi-
bility, there exists a gap in understanding the full extent of how these two variables affect
one another. Literature shows that communicator credibility does not bring mediation or
modification to message effectiveness, as it is dependent on variation in memory recall.
Coined by Hovland et al. (1949), the term “sleeper effect” is the tendency of information
consumers to forget sources of information, and therefore the credibility of that source,
while retaining the content of the message. In essence, the sleeper effect allows messages
from non-credible information sources to become more credible over time as an indi-
vidual increasingly disassociates the message from its source (Flanagin and Metzger,
2017). An inverse effect takes place in relation to credible information sources. Messages
from highly credible sources become less credible over time as the consumer increas-
ingly disassociates the message from the creator (Tannenbaum, 2014). Therefore, com-
municator credibility is not a prime mediator or modifier of message effectiveness (i.e.
memory recall).
However, an insufficient amount of research has investigated what effect variations in
message effectiveness play in altering communicator credibility. As different presentations
of information have been shown to be more effective in regard to memory recall (Sundar
and Limperos, 2013), there could conceivably be certain message structures (modality)
that lend to enough message effectiveness (memory recall) to eliminate the disassociation
between message content and its creator. This research asked the question,

RQ. Does variation in message effectiveness have any effect on communicator

credibility?

Methodology
The study made use of an online post-test-only experimental design. Such a design pro-
vided adequate controls for the hypotheses through considerable testing without sacri-
fices of validity. The selected design attempted to probe four unique conditions; therefore,
the experiment was characterized as a 2 × 2 factorial design. Four experimental groups
were used to account for each permutation in the variables: a specific medium (Twitter
or Instagram) and a specific information source (user or professional). A pilot study was
Arceneaux and Dinu 4161

first conducted to test the validity and reliability of the selected methodological design.
Having produced favorable results, the main experiment was conducted without
manipulation.

Population of interest
The population of interest was American college students. This included US citizens, 18 to
24, enrolled in a two- or four-year degree program. As approximately 15% of enrolled
undergraduates complete their degree in 6 years (National Center for Education Statistics,
2016), the maximum age of 24 years allowed for the extended completion of a degree. This
age range also fell within the demographic that has been correlated to the highest levels of
social media use (Coleman and McCombs, 2007; Greenwood et al., 2016).

Sample selection
Data as collected from a non-probability convenience sample. Student participants were
enrolled in lower and upper division courses. Lower division courses allowed for the
inclusion of participants from a diverse range of academic majors, while enrollment in
upper-division social science courses allowed for the inclusion of participants from mul-
tiple academic designations (graduate, senior, junior, etc.). A range of 30 to 50 respond-
ents were targeted for recruitment per each treatment group.

Procedures
Part I.  The experiment was administered via SurveyGizmo. Each new participant was
randomly, yet evenly, distributed across treatment groups (25% of N per each condi-
tion). Following randomization, the experiment presented participants with six news
stories, each followed by five items of a quantitative measure which recorded the
participants’ preference for that information source’s credibility. Determining partici-
pant preferences for information source allowed the researcher to determine not nec-
essarily if certain information sources were or were not credible but the extent to
which participants found certain information sources credible. All stimuli provided to
participants were restricted to the medium-specific structure of the participant’s
assigned social media platform.

Part II.  Participants then received a distractor task. The distractor task separated the con-
tent of the experimental stimuli from a cued memory test. Through 15 items, participants
were asked to match the picture of a country to its appropriate name. Three countries
were selected from each major global region. Countries selected for the distractor task
did not correspond to any of the countries involved in the experimental stimuli.

Part III.  Participants then took a cued memory test. The test comprised six questions,
each item providing a statement that highlighted partial information from one of the
news items presented in Part I of the experiment. Participants then selected out of six
multiple choices options the answer that correctly completed the information as
4162 new media & society 20(11)

presented in Part I. This allowed the researcher to draw conclusions about the influences
each particular social media platform had on memory recall.

Experimental stimuli
The experimental stimuli used for Part I of the experiment were collected from authentic
social media accounts and manipulated to fit the specific needs of this research. Six news
items corresponding to one of the six subcategories of global competence were adapted
to account for the four specific conditions of experimental design. Platform-specific
stimuli were categorically targeted to present environmental, political, geographic, reli-
gious, socioeconomic, or cultural issues. More specifically, each subcategory of global
competence provided the necessary content to quantitatively measure source credibility
and message presentation. As two hypotheses were asserted, in tandem with the six iden-
tified subcategories of global competence, six stimuli were selected, one per each unique
subcategory, in order to maintain a balanced exposure to globally competent content.
Participants in condition X1 were exposed to tweets attributed to professionals.
Participants in condition X2 were exposed to posts attributed to professionals. Participants
in condition X3 were exposed to tweets attributed to users. Participants in condition X4
were exposed to posts attributed to users. Examples of condition-based stimuli can be
seen in Figures 1–4.
While it can be argued that McLuhan’s (1964) notion of “the medium is message”
inherently changes the message across different platforms, that is, the meaning of an
Instagram post is inherently different from a tweet, the experimental element of analysis
was the factual basis of the presented information. Thus, while the message as a whole
may have meant different things across different platforms, the study quantitatively
measured the factual and objective recall of what was stated in each post, not what was
subjectively meant across posts on different platforms.

Variables and measures

The independent variable (IV) for H1 consisted of the dominant channel of communica-
tion a user encountered per each platform: text in the case of Twitter or visuals in the case
of Instagram. H1 sought to discern which of the two presentations users would remember
better; as such the dependent variable (DV) was message effectiveness. Following the
distractor task, participants completed a cued memory recall test to quantify the extent to
which they were able to recall the information presented in the experimental stimuli. The
test followed a study-test methodology in which participants were asked to observe (or
study) the presented stimuli and then answer memory-related questions that provided the
participant with a cue to instigate the recall (Beseler, 1953). Six multiple-choice options
were provided to allow participants only a 16.7% chance of guessing the correct answer
per each item. The item of the cued memory recall test related to the politics (provided
stimuli) can be viewed in Table 1.
For each item a participant chose the correct answer, he or she was awarded one point.
For choosing an incorrect answer, a participant received no points. Once all six items were
answered, the total number of points earned was calculated to determine what percentage
Arceneaux and Dinu 4163

Figure 1.  Condition X1’s Twitter stimuli from a professional news outlet based on politics.
The cited source did not publish this information.

Figure 2.  Condition X2’s Instagram stimuli from a professional news outlet based on politics.
The cited source did not publish this information.

of answers were correct. The final calculated percentile per each participant was the data
used for statistical analysis. These data quantitatively identified in an interval level of
measurement which of the two media platforms led to better recall. Utilizing memory
recall allowed the researcher to determine if visually dominated platforms were indeed
more effective than textually dominated platforms.
In considering H2, the IV consisted of the information source of content. Chen and
Kim (2013) determined that consumers find information provided by users to be more
credible compared to information provided by professionals. To investigate this claim,
the DV for H2 was the communicator credibility of each information source. Items pre-
sented identical information and attributed it to either a user or a professional. Data were
collected by asking participants to rank their opinion of the communicator’s credibility
through a number of questions that constituted a news credibility scale. The five-item
4164 new media & society 20(11)

Figure 3.  Condition X3’s Twitter stimuli from a casual social media user based on politics.
The cited source did not publish this information.

Figure 4.  Condition X4’s Instagram stimuli from a casual social media user based on politics.
The cited source did not publish this information.

Table 1.  Example of the cued memory test (Beseler, 1953).

Despite numerous rapes
committed by Syrian refugees in
Germany, what does the United
States plan to do regarding
the intake of refugees in the
continental United States?
(a) S top taking in Syrian refugees and deport all those
who are already here.
(b) S top taking in Syrian refugees but allow those already
here to stay.
(c) T ake in more Syrian refugees to make up for what
Germany will no longer take in.
(d) They plan to keep taking in Syrian refugees as normal.
(e) T hey plan to keep taking in Syrian refugees but house
them in detention centers.
(f) T
 hey plan to keep taking in Syrian refugees but not
allow them to practice Islam.
Arceneaux and Dinu 4165

Table 2.  Example of the news credibility scale (Meyer, 1988).

Can’t be trusted 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Can be trusted

Is inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Is accurate
Is unfair 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Is fair
Doesn’t tell whole story 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tell the whole story
Is biased 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Is unbiased

measure constructed a news credibility scale which previously reported a Cronbach’s

α = .92 (Meyer, 1988; West, 1994). As data were collected through a 7-point semantic
differential scale, the results provided findings at an interval level of measurement. The
full scale can be viewed in Table 2.
Before the hypothesis testing occurred, reliability tests were run on each item of
Meyer’s (1988) news credibility scale. Across trust, accuracy, fairness, wholeness of
story, and bias, the reported reliability, via Cronbach’s α, showed strong evidence of reli-
ability with an α = .87:

RQ. Does variation in message effectiveness have any effect on communicator

credibility?

In relation to the RQ, the IV was message effectiveness as determined by memory

recall. The research question sought to ascertain if message effectiveness presented any
effect on communicator credibility. Therefore, the DV, data for which were collected
through Meyer’s news credibility scale, was the credibility associated with varying infor-
mation sources. Data pertaining to the IV of message effectiveness were collected
through the cued memory test used to investigate H1. Final data, collected in interval
levels of measurement for H1 and H2, analyzed if the varying message structures
between Twitter and Instagram improved memory recall enough to bring about varia-
tions in communicator credibility.

Results
Descriptive statistics
Following the conclusion of the pilot-test, responses were collected from a total of
N = 444 participants. Once the data set had been cleaned and all responses not conform-
ing to the population of interest were removed, a total of N = 405 cases remained for
analysis. A case was deemed unusable if the demographic responses did not meet the
parameters established in the methodology, or if participants invoked their right to stop
the survey before completion. The majority of excluded cases involved participants com-
pleting less than 50% of the questions in the experimental survey.
Of the 405 usable cases, 69.38% (n = 281) were female and 30.62% (n = 124) were
male. While all participants were US citizens, 96.50% (n = 391) were born in the United
States, while 3.50% (n = 14) were not. About 19.80% (n = 80) of participants were
18 years old, 37.50% (n = 152) were 19 years old, 15.80% (n = 64) were 20 years old,
4166 new media & society 20(11)

Table 3.  Descriptive statistics for academic designation.

Academic designation Number of participants (N = 405) % of N

Freshman 159 39.26
Sophomore 121 29.88
Junior 62 15.31
Senior 59 14.57
Graduate 4 0.98

11.40% (n = 46) were 21 years old, and 5.20% (n = 22) were 22 years old. The mean par-
ticipant was 20.15 years old (standard deviation [SD] = 3.04). Descriptive statistics
regarding academic designation can be viewed in Table 3.
Reports of academic performance produced a mean grade point average (GPA) of
3.11 (SD = 0.62). In addition, GPA data reported a skewness = −.99 with a kurtosis = 2.61,
leading to what would be characterized as a negatively skewed leptokurtic distribution.
Data pertaining to academic field of study showed a wide range of responses. The data
were most representative of majors in the Social Sciences (n = 112) and Health Services
(n = 103). Specific examples of Social Science majors included communication, political
science, criminal justice, psychology, sociology, history, and English. Specific examples
of Health Service majors included health information management, nursing, exercise
science, occupational therapy, kinesiology, dental hygiene, and pre-pharmacy.

Hypothesis testing
H1 suggested, a Visually Dominated Platform (Instagram) is more effective than a
Textually Dominated Platform (Twitter) in producing recall of globally competent
information.

An independent-samples t-test was used to test the null hypothesis:

H0. Visually dominated platforms would not be more effective than textually domi-
nated platforms in producing the recall of globally competent information.

The independent-samples t-test compared recall in Twitter and Instagram conditions.

Prior to testing, assumption tests were conducted on the data collected from the cued mem-
ory test (Beseler, 1953). Findings of a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test resulted in significance,
F(.170), 391, p < .05, leading to the conclusion that the data were not normally distributed.
Memory scores also produced a skewness = −.11 with a kurtosis = −.99, which was sugges-
tive of a negatively skewed platykurtic data distribution. While such statistical values sug-
gest non-normal distribution, studies have suggested that skewness and kurtosis between
the values of −2 and 2 are acceptable for making valid inferences (Field, 2013; George and
Mallery, 2010; Gravetter and Wallnau, 2014). Based on such literature, it was determined
that the reported skewness and kurtosis were within acceptable limits to proceed with
Arceneaux and Dinu 4167

Table 4.  T-test group statistic results for H1 (medium vs memory).

t df p
Between variables −1.76 389 .04
Twitter M = 47.50; Instagram M = 52.28

df: degree of freedom; M: mean.

statistical testing based on assumptions of normal distribution. On a scale of 1–100, the

mean memory score among all of the experimental conditions was mean (M) = 49.84
(SD = 1.37). For the purpose of the independent t-test, the memory scores were averaged
between the Twitter conditions as well as in the Instagram conditions.
When analyzing the results of the t-test for statistical significance, the data showed
significance for a one-tailed hypothesis (t = −1.76, degree of freedom [df] = 389, p = .04).
Therefore, the findings supported H1 in that Instagram (M = 52.28) was more effective
than Twitter (M = 47.50) in terms of information recall. This suggests that visual-based
social media platforms are more effective in producing memory recall than textual-based
platforms. Results of the independent-samples t-test can be viewed in Table 4.

H2 proposed, information consumers would believe globally competent information

created by a user more than globally competent information created by a
professional.

An independent-samples t-test was used to test the null hypothesis:

H0. Information consumers would not believe globally competent information created
by users more than globally competent information created by professionals.

The independent-samples t-test compared credibility in professional and user condi-

tions. Prior to hypothesis testing, responses to six independent sets of a news credibility
scale were analyzed for reliability. As all items of the news credibility scale were ori-
ented to rank the most negative assertions at the 1-value and the most positive assertions
at the 7-value, no recoding was necessary prior to statistical computation.
Before hypothesis testing, basic assumption tests were first conducted on the data
collected from the news credibility scale (Meyer, 1988). Findings of Kolmogorov–
Smirnov test resulted in significance (F(.07), 405, p < .05), leading to the conclusion
that the data were not normally distributed. Memory scores produced a skew-
ness = −.16 with a kurtosis = −.04, which indicated of a negatively skewed platykurtic
data distribution. One again, although the distribution appeared somewhat non-nor-
mal, the literature (Field, 2013; George and Mallery, 2010; Gravetter and Wallnau,
2014) indicated that the reported skewness and kurtosis were within acceptable limits
for further testing. On a scale of 1–7, the mean credibility score among all the experi-
mental conditions was M = 2.97 (SD = 0.94). For the purpose of the independent t-test,
4168 new media & society 20(11)

Table 5.  T-test group statistic results for H2 (source vs credibility).

t df p
Between variables 4.49 403 .000
Professional outlets M = 3.19; Casual users M = 2.78

df: degree of freedom; M: mean.

credibility scores were averaged between the professional conditions as well as in the
user conditions.
An independent-samples t-test produced a p < .001 for both a two- and one-tailed
hypothesis. While statistical significance was found, it was in support of professionals as
opposed to users. The findings were not in the expected direction, therefore while the
null hypothesis was rejected, the data failed to support H2. In other words, information
consumers did not find information created by users to be more credible than informa-
tion created by professionals, contrasting the prediction of H2. Results of the independ-
ent-samples t-test can be viewed in Table 5.

RQ asked, “Does variation in message effectiveness have any effect on communicator

credibility?”

Multiple simple linear regressions were used to test the null hypothesis,

H. Message effectiveness, via memory recall, would not have any modifying effect on
communicator credibility.

A simple linear regression was first conducted on the complete data set (N = 405) to
predict source credibility–based memory scores. The results were not significant (F(1,
389) = 1.55, p = n.s.) and resulted in a correlation coefficient of R = .004, explaining less
than 1% of the variation (adjusted R2 = .001). This finding suggested that there was no
relationship between memory and credibility when looking at the results of the combined
group.
Follow-up simple linear regressions were also conducted on each experimental condi-
tion. In the case of participants who received tweets from professionals (n = 93), the
results were not significant (F(1, 91) = 0.12, p = n.s.), and resulted in a single correlation
coefficient of R = .001, explaining less than 1% of the variation (adjusted R2 = −.01). In
the case of participants who received posts from professionals (n = 87), again the results
were not significant (F(1, 85) = 0.22, p = n.s.), and resulted in a single correlation coeffi-
cient of R = .009, explaining less than 1% of the variation (adjusted R2 = −.009). Unlike
the first two conditions, the regression model produced when participants received
tweets from users (n = 107) was a good fit (F(1, 105) = 6.07, p < .05), and resulted in a
single correlation coefficient of R = 0.05, explaining 5% of the variation (adjusted
R2 = .05). The regression equation for participants who received tweets from users was
the following: Credibility = 3.07 – .008(Memory) + ε. A participant’s predicted credibility
score was equal to 3.07 − .008(Memory Score) when memory was measured on a 1- to
Arceneaux and Dinu 4169

Table 6.  Simple linear regression results for RQ (memory vs credibility).

R2 Adjusted R2 df F p
All conditions .004 .001 1, 389 1.55 .22
Twitter/professional .001 −.010 1, 91 .12 .74
Instagram/professional .003 −.009 1, 85 .22 .64
Twitter/users .055 .046 1, 105 6.07 .02*
Instagram/users .000 −.009 1, 102 .04 .84

RQ: research question; df: degree of freedom.

100-point scale. Thus, credibility would decrease .008 units for each point increase on a
memory scale ranging from 1 to 100.
Finally, in the case where participants received posts from users (n = 104), results
were not significant (F(1, 102) = 0.039, p = n.s.) and resulted in a single correlation coef-
ficient of R = .000, explaining less than 1% of the variation (adjusted R2 = –.009).
Therefore, under four out of five possible conditional permutations, no significant rela-
tionship was found between memory and credibility; only under the independent condi-
tion of Twitter/user was a significant causal relationship reported via a regression model.
Although this single condition was found to be statistically significant, explaining only
5% of the variation was found to be marginal given the failure of the four other condi-
tions to produce statistical significance. These findings suggest that platform modality
did not produce sufficient memory recall to reverse or mitigate the sleeper effect. Further
results regarding the regression findings can be viewed in Table 6.

Discussion
Premise of the study
The premise of this study was to investigate the influences platform presentation and
source credibility played on how American college students consumed information. As
outlined, US citizens have consistently ranked below average in their awareness and
ability to understand global affairs (Bornstein, 2017; Council on Foreign Relations,
2016; Hunter, 2004; The New York Times, 1988). Looking at this problem from an
education perspective, increased internationalization of curriculum has been a key
learning outcome for several governing bodies (Hunter, 2015; NEA, 2010; US DoE,
2012). Although the DoE specifically targeted the application of social media in the
classroom as a means to increase learning outcomes (US DoE, 2010), minimal research
existed to support the applicability of such digital media to internationalization. While
what little research did exist explored Facebook, this study chose to investigate Twitter
and Instagram.
Specifically, this study looked at how at the presentation of information across plat-
forms affected the ability of consumers to recall information. It also investigated how
college students, in regard to credibility, viewed varying information sources. Participants
completed a three-part online experiment consisting of six sets of a five-item news
4170 new media & society 20(11)

credibility scale (Meyer, 1988), succeeded by a geography-identifying distractor task,

followed by a six-item memory test (Beseler, 1953).

Findings
The predominant finding of this study, which contradicted prior research, was that pro-
fessional news outlets (professional) were found to be more credible information sources
than casual social media users (user). Literature by Chen and Kim (2013) posited that
information consumers are more likely to believe information provided by social peers
over national media outlets. This is due to their need for meaningful social interaction in
the digital universe. These findings served to provide contradictory evidence when those
information consumers were American college students.
One potential explanation for this difference is that adults typically have at the least
some understanding of media framing, or the general awareness that news can be pre-
sented in such a light as to favor or disfavor a particular viewpoint (American Press
Institute, 2015). What is more, college students are less experienced in critical thinking
skills (Rimer, 2011). It is therefore plausible that college students, who are less critical of
media framing practices, would have little cause to question the credibility of informa-
tion published via a professional. Hence, it is valid to argue that college students would
be more prone to believe information provided by “the establishment”, for example, a
professional, over information provided by one or more social peers.
The study also found that the visually dominant platform of Instagram was more
effective in terms of information recall than the textually dominant platform of Twitter.
Although this finding supported H1, its overall effect size was seemingly less than sub-
stantial as both conditions scored an average failing grade on a standardized 10-point
grading scale. Visually dominant content would need to be paired with additional student
success techniques in order to produce more globally competent students.
While this finding does require more research, it makes a theoretical contribution to
the areas of communication and education. Research by the National Center for
Biotechnology Information (2015) found that the average online attention span was
8.25 seconds. With a continuing downward shift in attention span, information consum-
ers are spending less time reading and more time looking. Therefore, prior research
(Narain, 2015) has dictated that to more effectively reach digital audiences who are suf-
fering from the “visual revolution,” content needs to be more visually appealing (to grab
attention) and more visually informing (to maintain attention). This study supported such
findings in the areas of cognitive science, which dictate memory to be at least partially a
product of association. Thus, using images in the dissemination of information would
allow college students to form stronger mental associations when consuming globally
related information.

Theoretical contributions to research

MAIN Model.  The main objective of this study was to investigate how social media use
could positively affect learning outcomes. For this purpose, the study made use of parts
of Sundar’s (2008) MAIN Model. Although the MAIN Model had been used to study
Arceneaux and Dinu 4171

numerous digital platforms, it had yet to be directly applied to social networking plat-
forms. This study helped to theoretically broaden the application of Sundar’s MAIN
Model in the realm of socially mediated digital communication and education. Although
this study made use of Sundar’s MAIN Model, it did so only partially, emphasizing only
two of the model’s four pillars: modality and agency.

Modality. In regard to the presentation of digital information, this study investigated

whether textually dominant or visually dominant communication was more effective in
regard to information retention. The results supported the findings of Sundar and Limp-
eros (2013) which purported visually dominant content to be more effective in convey-
ing information than textual content. This finding serves to link Sundar’s (2008) pillar of
modality as a viable tool with which to further investigate social media practices as they
pertain to research on methods for content presentation in digital media.

Agency.  Whereas the inquiry into modality supported the findings of prior research, the
inquiry into agency produced counterintuitive results. Chen and Kim (2013) investigated
the effects information source can play and found that information consumers tend to be
more informed by sources with which the consumer has a relationship—real or merely
perceived. While this part of the study made use of an agency-specific investigation, its
findings served to contradict prevailing literature on source credibility (Chen and Kim,
2013; Flores et al., 2014; Sundar and Limperos, 2013).
Such unanticipated results have ambiguous implications for research pertaining to
socially interactive digital communication. This may mean that applying the agency
aspect of Sundar’s (2008) MAIN Model brings a new and unique quality to such research,
one that probes areas of communication not specifically addressed by previous research.
On the contrary, it could show that the agency aspect of the MAIN Model is not the most
optimal tool with which to investigate issues of communicator credibility in the digital
world. Further research would be necessary to more clearly ascertain which of these two
postulations holds true.

Practical contributions for education and communication

The findings of this study offer significant practical contributions for the classroom,
namely, a way for teachers to steer the information consumption process toward more
association-friendly digital channels. To improve global competence, teachers should
employ more visually informing content; platforms such as Instagram would make an
ideal candidate. While this study exclusively investigated the visual platform of
Instagram, findings suggest that other visually dominant platforms such as Tumblr,
Flickr, and Snapchat might also serve educators as tools for information recall.
Practical applications also include where educators can provide information from.
Specifically, educators should provide students with globally related information from
professionals. This term should be defined to include such national outlets that provide
more objective and unbiased journalism across its content, such as the The Wall Street
Journal or BBC World News. Mid-tier professionals could include regional entities that
make a considerable effort to publish objective and unbiased journalism, such as the
4172 new media & society 20(11)

Chicago Tribune or The Dallas Morning News. Professionals that should not be consid-
ered include national, regional, or local news outlets that make little to no effort to dilute
biased or subjective journalism, such as Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.

Limitations and suggestions for future research

While Sundar’s (2008) MAIN Model offers four affordances associated with gratifications in
digital media usage, the scope of this inquiry the led the researchers to investigate modality
and agency exclusively. Such a narrow scope of inquiry allowed for more clear and concise
experimental testing as an initial investigation into the area. However, given the implications
of modality and agency, the remaining affordances of interactivity and navigability hold great
potential in helping scholars to more holistically understand the relationship between younger
social media users and information consumption. Thus, a suggestion for future research
would be to conduct variations of experimental research into the mediating effects interactiv-
ity and navigability have on young social media users (2 × 2 factorial design) as well as in
conjunction with the full scope of the MAIN Model (4 × 4 factorial design).
In addition, this study did not optimally differentiate between the media-rich options each
social media platform offered. Instagram was classified as a visually dominant platform and
Twitter a textually dominant platform. However, it is quite common for textual tweets to be
accompanied by as many four visuals. The essence of Twitter is textual, but that does not
make it exclusively textual in nature. Suggestions for future research would be to account for
this type of textual–visual hybrid permutation in the more textually based platforms.
Furthermore, a limitation of this study was that it did not allow for the fact that per-
mutations of digital content are not limited to text and still visuals alone. Major platforms
have the capability of presenting textual content in association with audio/video content.
Video is a mutually exclusive variable when looking at text and still visuals. Suggestions
for future research would be to incorporate video as a third media-rich variable in tandem
with text and still visuals.
Another limitation of this study involved the extent of analysis on the collected data.
Looking beyond the elements of the hypotheses and research question, the stimuli were
presented around six categorical themes: politics, religion, economics, culture, geogra-
phy, and environmental issues. No testing was conducted to determine the moderating
effects different thematic categories played in how respondents interacted with the con-
tent. A suggest for future research would be to more thoroughly investigate the possible
psychological effects different content themes have on the role of modality and commu-
nicator credibility as presented in social media.
More research is still needed to better understand the full scope of communicator
credibility in digital media platforms. Limitations in this design consisted of the selected
professional news sources. To identify with young Americans, major US newspapers
were chosen as the information sources. Therefore, the findings related to source credi-
bility cannot favorably be generalized to all professionals worldwide. Given this limita-
tion, suggestions for future research would be to make use of a similar design but
specifically to use a wider range of global news sources. Suggestions for global news
outlets include the BBC, Agence-France Presse, Al Jazeera.
Arceneaux and Dinu 4173

Conclusion
The goal of this study was to make a contribution to the field of communication that
would allow for a better understanding of the way social media could be used to increase
learning. Having implemented an experimental design, findings led to increased knowl-
edge of how different physical qualities in social media platforms, as well as differing
information sources, might bring about worthwhile changes in consumption and reten-
tion of digital content. In place of the study’s shortcoming, meaningful research was still
conducted that could make practical improvements digital communication. Hopefully,
this scholarly work will serve to continue the discussion of how contemporary digital
communication can be used to produce more informed people.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

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Author biographies
Phillip C Arceneaux is a PhD student in the College of Journalism and Communications at the
University of Florida. He holds an MS from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a BA
from Louisiana State University. His research investigates both the social and political ramifica-
tions of social media usage in the context of international communication.
Lucian F Dinu, (PhD, University of Alabama) is an associate professor and department head in the
Department of Communication at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dinu’s research agenda
focuses on theories, processes, and effects of advertising in video and computer games, online viral
messages, mobile marketing, and branded media content in its various incarnations.