Consulting the CDC and TikTok: asynchronous modes of joint media engagement for COVID-19 learning in families.

Media resources are a central component of families' learning ecologies in the U.S. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the information ecosystem was flooded with content about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and personal protection measures. However, much of the coverage came through channels for adult audiences, and the 'infodemic' added to the difficulty of interpreting information from media sources. This article presents an analysis of the media learning ecologies of 109 families of 5–11-year-old children in the United States and describes how asynchronous modes of joint media engagement facilitated learning about Covid-19 during the early months of the pandemic. Findings call for a broader conceptualization of joint media engagement for learning in technologically saturated families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]