Learning From News on Different Media Platforms: An Eye-Tracking Experiment

Abstract

A large number of studies focus on the effects of news consumption on learning. However, we know surprisingly little about how the process of news consumption itself influences learning across different platforms. This experimental study (N = 149) uses eye tracking to examine to what extent news modality (i.e., whether news is presented in a printed newspaper or on a news website) affects visual attention to news, and subsequently, knowledge. Results show that differences in learning between news modalities are indeed driven by variations in attention; exposure to printed news media leads to more diverse learning through increased visual attention, while more selective visual attention to news on websites leads to learning of specific subjects only.