Information, Medium & Society: Twenty-second International Conference on Publishing Studies

Abstract

The authors investigate the problem of social media as a knowledge source, considering its significance in constructing social knowledge and translating the meanings. They use the epistemological attitude theory to approach the issue through an interdisciplinary humanities and social science viewpoint. Epistemological attitude theory supposes cognition as the process between an individual and an object occurring in subjective, contextual, and epistemological dimensions. This theory allows exploring social media sources as social knowledge represented as meanings reflected by an individual’s consciousness. Sixty-six university academics, including lecturers and researchers, and one hundred and two students from various universities in Latvia participated in the study. The study used the Epistemological Attitude Towards Sources of Knowledge Questionnaire to investigate how respondents approach, employ, and value social media as the general source type. The results were obtained by conducting confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses, statistical criteria, and correlation analysis. The results deliver academics’ and students’ epistemological and psychological meanings of social media. Exemplifying profiles of the significance of the source, the differences between both groups are analysed, illustrating how social media is represented in academics’ and students’ consciousness. The findings reveal that scholars and students perceive social media differently, prescribing distinct epistemological values to its content. Also, they hold different approaches to translating the meaning in their communities. At the same time, both acknowledge the psychological importance. Finally, the authors summarise that these meanings reflect the need for social knowledge obtained by social media and participating in its creation that simultaneously shapes social cognition.