Media in information dissemination: A study of how the pandemic changed communication behaviours of students at King Saud University

Abstract

This study aims to identify emerging dimensions of communication behavior after the Covid-19 pandemic from the media education perspective. The study applied a survey method to test the relationships between the variables of media use before and after the pandemic, the critical consumption, and the critical prosumption (production and consumption) of the media messages on a sample of male (117) and female (94) Saudi students. Results of the study showed that the average use of media among the respondents is (2.68 out of 4). This average increases significantly in the case of new media applications in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the levels of exposure to traditional media does not show any change. The scale of critical consumption among the respondents changed from (3.49 out of 4) to (3.05 out of 4). The following statistical tests confirm the respondents’ difference in the consumption and prosumption levels according to the Grade Point Average (G.P.A.), implying that a directly proportional relationship is at work between new media use and critical consumption and prosumption levels. Meanwhile, the relationship between exposure to traditional media and critical consumption is rather weak. The correlation is not significant in the case of the prosumption scale. The study concluded that the increase in critical consumption is offset by an increase in critical prosumption. However, the findings call for more research on the effect of intervening variables.