Joint Media Engagement

[Page 394]Joint media engagement (JME) refers to multiple individuals acting together while viewing or interacting with either digital or traditional media. JME includes both spontaneous and ephemeral interactions, occurring naturalistically in the moment, as well as interactions in or related to intentionally designed media experiences. Social interactions around media are of interest to researchers because they can enhance learning through shared meaning-making processes, promote linguistic and social development, elicit learner understandings, and scaffold discourse and media practices.

JME is an important topic of study because all engagement in media, be it playing a video game or discussing a television episode, is fundamentally social. Investigations into JME have sought to elucidate the mechanisms by which social learning occurs when engaging with media and how technologies and designed ...