Digital Media Platforms and Education: The Uses of Social Networking in the UAE and China

Abstract

Young people today are growing up in a digitalized environment. What challenges do they face in navigating this content-rich, symbolic environment? In this article, the researcher reviews university students' perceptions of media literacy by examining the use of social networking platforms (SN) in academic settings. The researcher distributed 1200 surveys evenly split between Chinese and UAE students and 998 were returned and analyzed. The findings reveal that while many students believe that media literacy should become a priority in modern curricula, this urgency is not felt by the majority of students. The researcher reviews current views and methodologies in the literature related to media literacy and its status in current pedagogy. The study draws from gravitation theory to place the use of SN tools within a broader background of communication. The Uses and Gratification Theory is also invoked to explain how SN was made attractive to campus activists and protesters in the two countries.

Using Electronic Media and Problems of Prophetic Communication Behavior at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta

“…These findings encourage that the use of communication media has a positive impact on the quality of life of a person as long as the media is used with good intentions [8], [18]- [20].…”

“…If the motive is fulfilled, then the needs of the audiences will be fulfilled. In the end, the media which are capable of meeting the needs of the audiences is called effective media [8], [9], [10], [11]. This theory also describes how the internal and environmental factors will affect the motives for using media to be chosen.…”

“…In this regard Katz and Gurevitch explained that the human needs are influenced by social environment, group affiliation, and personality traits. Hence, the creation of needs relates to the media includes cognitive, affective, integrative personality, integrative social and the need for releasing [8], [12].…”

Use of Social Media in Teaching High School Students: A Case of United Arab Emirates

“…Similarly, the use of social media in education allows the learners to better understand themselves and others, which enables them to become creative in activities like blogging and promotes academic achievement (El-Badawy & Hashem, 2015). Research has revealed that there is a positive correlation between the use of social media and improvement in academic performance (Al-Jenaibi, 2020a and 2020b; Mensah & Nizam, 2016). For instance, the students can form social media groups to share academic-related ideas and improve their competence in a topic or subject, directly impacting their academic performance.…”