Abstract
This study investigates the impact of transnationalism on Chinese international graduate students’ literacy practices in online information seeking. Using phenomenological interviewing, weekly diaries, and focus group data, the study found that these students actively engage in recursive, dynamic, and flexible online information-seeking literacy practices that transcend linguistic, digital, and unconventional cultural boundaries due to their multilingual capacity and unique social positioning in the online information landscape. This study reveals that these students’ transnational habitus in online information seeking manifests as a configuration of dispositions rather than one fixed transnational habitus. These findings underscore the importance of understanding multilingual international students’ online information-seeking experiences, literacies, and challenges to inform engaging, transnationally inclusive, and culturally relevant information literacy curricula and instruction in U.S. higher education institutions.
Introduction
In today's media-saturated society, the importance of online information literacy has increased exponentially. Online information literacy is widely understood to encompass the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that enable individuals to navigate the complex information landscape. Despite the increased attention devoted to understanding young people's engagement with online information (e.g., Kohnen et al., 2020; Wineburg et al., 2016), and the extensive exploration of multiliteracies of transnational student populations (e.g., Lam, 2009; Lam, 2014; Skerrett, 2012), there is a dearth of research on the information literacy practices of young individuals with transnational backgrounds whose primary language is not English.
Multilingual international students are a significant subgroup of transnational students whose information literacy practices warrant examination. These students rely heavily on online information to navigate their studies as they adapt to new sociocultural, linguistic, and educational contexts in a foreign country (Click et al., 2017; Sin, 2015). In doing so, they encounter a new information ecosystem that spans continents, cultures, and languages, and must learn to navigate it (Chang et al., 2020). Unlike immigrant youth who typically identify more with their host country or those who can seamlessly operate across two countries (Kim et al., 2003; Lam, 2009), multilingual international students who temporarily pursue education overseas have more association with and dependence on their countries of origin due to their extended stays while they maintain sociocultural connections and influences with both their home and host countries (Zhang-Wu, 2018). Therefore, it is crucial to explore the impact of the broad, bilateral, varied, and imbalanced social networks’ linkage with multiple nation-states and identities on the ways in which they navigate online information in the host country. Understanding the online information-seeking practices of multilingual international students can provide insight into the development of culturally relevant and transnationally inclusive information literacy curricula and instruction that acknowledge and respect the experiences of international students in U.S. higher education institutions.
To contextualize my inquiry, this qualitative study investigates the online information literacy practices of Chinese international students enrolled in higher education institutions in the United States. Currently, international students from China account for 35% of all international students in the United States (IIE, 2022). They are non-native speakers of English and come from an online information environment that is distinct from the open internet in the United States (Freedom House, 2022). This research focuses on graduate-level students because Chinese graduate students generally possess more established Chinese worldviews, values, and habits of mind than their undergraduate counterparts (Wang & Freed, 2021). The two specific questions that guided this study were: (1) How do Chinese international graduate students describe their literacy practices for seeking various online information in the United States? and (2) How does transnationalism shape and influence their information-seeking habitus? The study yielded a significant finding that Chinese international students’ transnational habitus in online information seeking emerged as a configuration of dispositions, whereby their information-seeking habits for various purposes were dissimilarly influenced by the transnational process. This article will further explicate this finding.
Transnationalism and Digital Literacies
This study adopts a transnationalism framework, which is a widely accepted paradigm in the field of migration studies. Transnationalism refers to the complex process whereby individuals maintain multiple social networks and links to both their home and host communities (Levitt, 2009; Levitt & Schiller, 2004). This approach elucidates the phenomenon of migrants who lead a mobile international lifestyle, leveraging economic, social, educational, and other opportunities across two or more nations (Skerrett, 2015). Literacy scholars have used the term transnational literacies to describe the agentive literacy practices of transnational students in organizing their lives (e.g., Jimenez et al., 2009; Warriner, 2007). With the pervasive use of digital technology, the past decade has witnessed significant advancements in transnational perspectives in digital spaces inhabited by migrant students (Kim, 2018; Lam, 2014). Transnationalism allows us to account for the dynamicity and hybridity of transnational students’ information seeking, instead of limiting their experience to online space based in either their home or host country.
The analytical concepts of transnational habitus and bifocality, derived from the transnationalism paradigm, provide a valuable lens for examining the information literacy practices of Chinese international students. In this study, transnational habitus serves as an interpretive framework for understanding the values and dispositions that these students acquire and negotiate through their information literacy engagement. According to Bourdieu (1990), habitus refers to “systems of durable, transposable dispositions” (p. 53) and embodied collections of “schemes of perception, thought, and action” (p. 54) that result from past experiences and conditions of experience. Guarnizo (1997) introduced the term of transnational habitus to describe the dispositions or propensities for certain social actions that develop from individuals’ social positioning and experiences across countries, which may result in different forms of dualistic dispositions or comparative perspectives (Lam & Warriner, 2012). In other words, migrants develop a transnational habitus if they are socialized in contexts that span across national borders, acquiring, combining, and incorporating different forms of behavior and evaluation, dispositions and experiences, values, orientations, and attitudes (Guarnizo, 1997; Nedelcu, 2012).
Concerning transnational habitus, Carlson and Schneickert (2021) provide a useful framework for examining the changes in the information-seeking practices of international students as they navigate multiple borders. They theorized transnational habitus as a configuration of dispositions, assuming that transnationalism may impact the habitual configuration of dispositions differently. This implies that there may be disparities between dispositions to believe and dispositions to act (Lahire, 2003, p. 336), a gap between beliefs and real possibilities of action, and some dispositions may be more transnationalized than others. These ideas offer a valuable perspective for analyzing the information-seeking habits of international students, which may take various forms, occur to varying degrees, and are frequently contested, despite being often uniform and one-directional in purpose.
Bifocality, an essential analytical concept in this study, is a dual frame of reference that refers to transnational forms of communication, exchange, and activities that impact the cognitive, social, and cultural orientation of migrants (Vertovec, 2004). Bifocality enables migrants to constantly compare life experiences, events, and situations of their home and host society from the dual points of view (Lam & Warriner, 2012). This concept helps us understand how international students seek online information from a broader perspective and the comparative perspectives may emerge. By analyzing the cognitive and cultural impact of bifocality on international students’ information source orientation, this study can uncover the nuances and complexities of their information-seeking practices.
It is worth noting that a transnational optic does not imply that all migrants engage in sustained interactions across borders (Lam & Warriner, 2012). Therefore, it is essential to analyze literacy practices based on their meaning and significance to migrants while considering the conditions that facilitate or constrain these practices. By examining how the extensiveness, intensity, and velocity of networked flows of information and resources available to Chinese international students (Vertovec, 2004) may combine to alter their online information-seeking practices, this study seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between transnationalism and information literacy.
International Students and Online Information
Multilingual international students inhabit a distinct online information environment that exposes them to a range of perspectives, including those from their previous and current internet environment, and other global information sources (Chang et al., 2020). Chang and Gomes (2020) proposed the concept of “digital information ecologies” (p. 5) to understand the complexity of digital environment in which international students search for and receive information. They argued that international students’ information ecologies are delicate and require assistance in adapting to a new information environment. This is because international students frequently encounter three simultaneous changes of context: studying overseas, becoming an “outsider” in a new culture, and relocating to a new country. This temporary state of lostness was captured by Yoon and Chung (2017) who noted that international students often struggle to identify what information they need and where to find it. Additionally, Chang and Gomes (2017) introduced the concept of the “digital journey” as a framework for gaining insight into the changes in international students’ online information-seeking behavior. The digital journey describes the transition that individuals make online from relying on one bundle of digital information sources to a new bundle, which may be based in the new host country or internationally.
The assessment of information credibility by international students is complicated by the risk of misinformation at various levels. The act of moving to a new country disrupts their information ecology, information-seeking habits, social networks, and understanding of information sources (Click et al., 2017; Hicks, 2019). Furthermore, evaluating the credibility of information can be challenging for international students because the assessment is constructed, negotiated, and mediated within specific social settings and contexts. Each social setting has a unique cultural, institutional, and historical context that influences how people make credibility judgments (Limberg et al., 2012; Mansour & Francke, 2017). Research has shown that cultural understandings of information authority and previous life experiences can also affect international students’ assessment of information credibility (Crist & Popa, 2020; Rodriguez, 2014). For example, Chinese international students may consider the reputation and rankings of an institution (Rodriguez, 2014) or teachers (Crist & Popa, 2020) as the authority, which might not hold true in other sociocultural contexts.
In the past two decades, the most commonly used method for investigating international student information literacy has been surveys, with fewer than half of the studies being original empirical studies (Click et al., 2017). Furthermore, given the importance of contextual factors such as culture and situation in shaping people's experiences with information, a holistic approach that considers individuals, information, and their worlds is necessary (Case & Given, 2016). Therefore, this qualitative study seeks to provide a more detailed account of international students’ information literacy practices by amplifying their voices and perspectives, gaining insight into their perceptions, attitudes, and emotions.
Information Literacy of Chinese International Students
This study views information literacy as a social practice that acknowledges its complex, holistic, socially situated, and context-dependent nature (Hicks, 2016; Papen, 2013). Cultural beliefs, views, and nuances of sociocultural identity play a significant role in shaping how individuals navigate online information and interpret diverse internet texts (Coiro, 2021). Thus, information literacy practices are contextually contingent and vary across cultural communities. Consequently, international students cannot be viewed as a homogeneous group, but rather as a diverse population with distinct cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds, interactive experiences with online resources, and unique thoughts and feelings toward information use (Hughes, 2013). As a result, their diversity leads to variations in how they practice information literacy (Chang et al., 2020).
The information literacy practices of Chinese international students are complex and cannot be comprehended without taking into account their digital, sociocultural, and educational backgrounds. In the digital realm, China's level of internet freedom ranks last among 65 countries representing 88% of the world's internet users (Freedom House, 2022). Western digital platforms such as Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are inaccessible in mainland China. Instead, China's internet landscape boasts a vibrant array of home-grown digital services, including search engines and social media sites (China Internet Watch, 2018). From a sociocultural perspective, traditional Chinese-Confucian culture places high value on authority, tradition, and social order (Ho, 1994). Chan et al. (2011) observed that Chinese students’ epistemic beliefs and critical thinking tend to lead to quick positions on controversial issues rather than an objective evaluation of opposing arguments. In addition, information literacy education in China emphasizes information retrieval in higher education libraries rather than online information seeking and credibility assessment (Guo & Huang, 2020). Furthermore, unlike in the United States, there is no uniform professional organization such as the Association of College and Research Libraries that promotes information literacy as a learning and teaching objective for higher education libraries (Guo & Huang, 2020; Zeng et al., 2008).
Previous studies have illuminated Chinese international students’ experiences in academic information seeking (e.g., Han, 2012; Zhao & Mawhinney, 2015). For example, Saw et al. (2013) found that Chinese students at a U.S. university sought help for their academic needs more often on Chinese social networking sites than on Facebook, and tended to avoid host-country sources. Han (2012) revealed that Chinese doctoral students in Australia faced difficulties in developing their information literacy skills as they learned to conduct research. Similarly, through a comparison between Chinese and native English-speaking undergraduate engineering students in a Canadian university, Zhao and Mawhinney (2015) demonstrated that Chinese students encounter unique challenges in searching, evaluating information, reading, writing, and citing.
Chinese international students’ literacy practices in consuming online news can differ depending on the host country and campus culture in which they pursue education. Astarita and Patience (2020) compared Chinese students’ access to media information in Australia and France and found that those studying in an Australian university preferred Chinese media sources over local or non-Chinese sources of information due to their perceived sense of isolation. However, in a French university where cross-cultural exchanges were promoted, most Chinese students expressed an interest in reading foreign news to stay informed about social, political, and economic developments in China.
While previous research on international students’ information literacy has mainly focused on academic contexts, everyday information seeking can be more intricate and demanding for them (Hertzum & Hyldegård, 2019; Sin & Kim, 2018). Therefore, this study takes a comprehensive approach to investigate how Chinese international students search for online information for academic, everyday life, and news purposes, examining how their information-seeking practices and perspectives may be influenced, reinforced, or transformed depending on the purpose of their searches.
Methodology
I adopted a basic qualitative approach (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to examine the online information literacy practices of Chinese international students. This approach allowed me to delve deeper into the meanings and interpretations emanating from their information-seeking experiences across countries, cultures, and information ecosystems.
Context and Participants
To ensure information-rich cases for the study, I utilized purposeful sampling techniques (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to identify and select six participants from a large public university in the Southeastern United States. Leveraging the popularity of WeChat (China's most popular multifunctional social media platform) among Chinese international students, an electronic recruitment flyer was disseminated to various Chinese student WeChat groups, with the assistance of peer Chinese students. Selection criteria included: (1) participants were born in China and had completed all K-16 education in mainland China and (2) participants were enrolled as graduate students in the College of Education. The primary exposure to the internet environment of mainland China before their overseas studies is essential because of my interest in understanding the experiences of individuals who moved from one online information environment to another. Moreover, I narrowed my focus to Education students since an enhanced awareness of information literacy can allow them, who are future educators or teachers, to further empower their prospective students’ information literacy.
Of those who met the selection criteria, I invited participants who represented a variety of hometowns in China, family backgrounds, gender, degree program, and year levels. Mandarin Chinese was the native language of all participants, while their English proficiency met the exacting standards of the U.S. university that enrolled them as international graduate students. Table 1 presents detailed demographic information of six participants.
Participant Demographics.
The year level as reported by participants at the time of the first interview.
Total time includes the time spent on their master's degree at a U.S. institution.
Data Collection
The study's data collection spanned from early November 2021 to late March 2022. Phenomenological interviewing (N = 18), weekly diary (N = 24), and focus group data were collected to establish meaningful claims (Tracy, 2010).
Phenomenological Interviewing
As international student information literacy is widely regarded as a social phenomenon (Lloyd & Williamson, 2008), employing Seidman's phenomenological interviewing (2006) is a logical choice for comprehending the contextual influences on this phenomenon from participants’ perspectives. My study utilizes a three-interview series, with each interview lasting 90 min and employing an open-ended approach, as it is crucial to acquire a holistic understanding of participants’ prior information-seeking experiences in China before delving into their practices in the United States. Furthermore, this interview series allows for participants to reflect on their information-seeking experiences at multiple points, providing a more nuanced and thorough comprehension of their experiences (Seidman, 2006).
To ensure the effectiveness of the three-interview structure (Seidman, 2006), each interview was conducted at a 2-week interval. The first and second interviews respectively focused on participants’ online information-seeking experiences in China and the United States. The third interview centered on the participants’ reflections on the meaning of their experiences. Prior to the final interview, I transcribed the first two interviews to select pertinent details and stories to elicit reflections and facilitate meaning-making in the third interview. The average duration of each interview was 97 min, and all interviews were conducted online to adhere to COVID-19 safety protocols. To facilitate later analysis, all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Weekly Diary
To facilitate reflection and provide concrete materials for eliciting participants’ information-seeking patterns, thoughts, and attributed meaning (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), participants were requested to maintain information-seeking diaries. Beginning after completing their second interview, participants were asked to record one online search incident each week, for a consecutive 4-week period. The diary, which took the form of a brief online questionnaire, was sent out to participants every Friday and prompted them to describe and reflect on a recent online information-seeking incident. I compiled each participant's weekly diaries and used the reported incidents as a basis for eliciting their reflections and meaning-making in the third interview.
Focus Group
To further explore ideas and issues that may not have arisen in the one-on-one interviews, I facilitated one focus group discussion in a permissive and nonthreatening environment (Krueger, 2014). The aim was to create an informal atmosphere that would enable students to share their perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and attitudes on cross-border online information seeking, positioning them as experts whose insights were critical in advancing the discussion on transnational information literacy. The 95 min discussion was audio-recorded to facilitate later analysis.
To ensure that participants were comfortable expressing themselves and to enhance the reliability of the findings, I gave them the option to use either Mandarin Chinese, English, or a mixture of both. However, despite the options presented, all participants chose to respond in Mandarin Chinese as they felt more at ease using their native language. Nevertheless, participants utilized varying degrees of code-switching to English, depending on the context.
Data Analysis
Concurrent with data collection, I engaged in an ongoing analysis of my participants’ online information seeking. After each interview, I transcribed all data verbatim in Chinese and conducted an initial analysis, which enabled me to obtain an overall understanding of my participants’ information-seeking experiences. To ensure accurate interpretation and capture the complexity of participants’ meaning-making, the initial analysis was conducted on Chinese transcripts (Blair, 2016). Subsequently, all transcripts were uploaded to Nvivo12, a qualitative data analysis software, for further analysis.
During the second phase of data analysis, I applied open and axial coding (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to interviews to identify recurring patterns, which were later corroborated, extended, or problematized with diaries and focus group data (Tracy, 2010). Specifically, I employed an inductive approach to assign open codes centered on participants’ descriptions of information-seeking practices, focusing on how their literacy practices were kept, changed, or transformed due to their transnational experiences. For example, I assigned codes to participants’ academic information seeking, including phrases such as “speak highly of U.S. academic information environment” and direct quotes like “their information is more credible.” Axial coding was then used to group initial codes into categories such as “strengthened dispositions in academic information seeking,” which emerged as one of the themes in the study findings.
This article presents evidence translated from Chinese to English for concision, but some Chinese words have been kept to preserve the original. During the data analysis process, I maintained regular contact with participants and provided opportunities for them to ask questions, give feedback, and confirm the study's credibility to improve its trustworthiness.
Researcher's Positionality
I was primarily motivated to explore the topic under investigation due to the shared life experiences between myself and the participants. I contend that these experiences are instrumental in affording me unique insights into the effects of transnationalism on their online information-seeking practices. As a former Chinese international student, my own experiences have equipped me with an intimate understanding of my participants’ sociocultural, linguistic, and digital backgrounds. This privileged insider position has enabled me to establish a rapport with participants effortlessly, facilitating an enhanced comprehension of the research context and their lived experiences concerning online information seeking.
Nonetheless, the mere fact that I share similar identities with my research participants does not guarantee a complete understanding of their cross-cultural online information seeking experiences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I am mindful of the differences that exist between us, which impede my ability to comprehend or extrapolate from their information-seeking encounters. For instance, all of the participants were born in the 1990s and have been exposed to digital technology since elementary school, making them digital natives. Moreover, their middle-class parents could afford to support their academic pursuits in a U.S. institution. This generational and socio-economic divide between us places me at risk of developing stereotypical and biased attitudes toward my participants (Berger, 2015), thereby rendering my retelling of their experiences somewhat incomplete. Despite this, I rely on my experiences as a transnational student, coupled with constant self-reflection and journal writing, to examine my biases and assumptions critically and present an authentic account of their transnational information-seeking experiences.
Findings
This section illuminates the complex, dynamic, and flexible online literacy practices of students and the challenges they face as transnational information seekers. It also illustrates that the transnational habitus of students in information seeking is not static but rather emerges as a configuration of dispositions, with distinctions and gaps between dispositions to believe (beliefs or perceptions about information) and dispositions to act (actual actions in information seeking). In other words, changes in students’ dispositions take different forms, vary in degree, and are often contested. Some dispositions are more transnationalized than others, depending on the purpose of their information seeking. I have identified three forms of dualistic dispositions that I will expound upon below: Chinese international students’ transnational dispositions are strengthened in their academic information seeking, divided in their search for everyday life information, and activated in their consumption of news.
Strengthened Dispositions in Academic Information Seeking
During their studies in an English-dominated U.S. institution, participants adopted transnational information literacy practices by utilizing academic information from both U.S. and Chinese online environments. In doing so, they further reinforced their already ingrained dispositions to believe, considering academic information on English language online platforms as more professional, authentic, credible, and rigorous. Additionally, their dispositions to act—their primary use of U.S.-based information for academic purposes—was also reinforced as they gained easy access to and used U.S. information more frequently.
Students flexibly navigated across linguistic and digital information boundaries, utilizing the strengths of both information repositories to achieve their learning goals. They engaged in translanguaging (García & Li, 2014) by alternating between named languages and even strategically creating bilingual keywords to obtain the best results. As Ling explained, “I might visit Google, Baidu (China's most widely used search engine), English and Chinese version of Wikipedia, or Zhihu (Quora's Chinese equivalent), depending on what information I need.”
Ling and Cheng utilized iterative, flexible, and dynamic search processes to gather information for their research projects. For example, to collect background knowledge for her project on language policy, Ling first searched for Chinese language policy on Baidu using keywords “双语教育 (bilingual education)” and “双语政策 (bilingual policy)” before turning to Google to search for the same terms in English. She also used a combination of Chinese and English keywords to broaden her search. Cheng collected three strands of journal articles for her topic on rural education, including Chinese language articles from Chinese academic databases, English language articles by Chinese scholars from the university library, and English articles by English-speaking scholars from Google Scholar.
Despite studying in the United States, Chinese language resources were frequently utilized by students as intellectual assets to aid in their academic pursuits, gain insight into intricate concepts, and acquire background knowledge. According to Ling, “Zhihu is a phenomenal resource! Proficient individuals on the platform possess the ability to elucidate complex or abstract notions with ease using everyday examples. Such straightforward explanations are not easily found on American websites.” Similarly, when tasked with reflecting on an English film without subtitles, Yan and Haiyang opted to turn to Chinese movie reviews. Yan stated that she could “comprehend the film faster and with greater accuracy, and it was simpler to identify the best reviews.” The multilingual skills and transnational literacies of these students allowed them to access valuable resources for learning and research, extending their knowledge and refining their understanding of the subject matter. Furthermore, reading in their native language enhanced their efficiency in assimilating academic information.
Although students were adept at engaging with transnational literacies, they also augmented their transnational dispositions toward academic information seeking in the United States, encompassing both dispositions to believe and dispositions to act. In fact, although they mainly acquired study-related information from Chinese sources while in China, they had already developed transnationalized dispositions to believe, expressing a preference for and trust in English-language academic online information. They also demonstrated dispositions to act, utilizing VPN sporadically to access academic information that was blocked in mainland China. It is worth noting that VPN usage is crucial for accessing blocked websites within mainland China. For instance, while in China, Xinxin accessed test materials from non-Chinese websites, exemplifying the students’ use of VPN to procure academic information: I remember when I had to make cloze tests for eighth-grade English exams. I wanted to avoid surpassing the great firewall, but Chinese websites didn't have enough good English readings for me to work with… So, I went to Google to find more genuine English materials. The language was more authentic, and the language and selection of materials were far superior to what was available on Chinese websites. I was also able to easily find readings that were appropriate for eighth-grade English learners…
Such pre-existing positive attitudes, perceptions, and experiences with U.S. academic information were reinforced when they shifted to studying abroad, albeit with varying reasons for such a source preference. The majority of the participants opined that, as per Zhan's observation, “English online content could aid in better comprehension since the theories and knowledge we learned here originated from the West.” They also perceived English academic information to be more reliable compared to Chinese sources. Xinxin articulated her perspective: In China, there used to be a stereotype that if someone could speak English fluently, they were considered highly literate and respected… This cultural stereotype has influenced my trust in English online resources to some extent…
Indeed, the proclivity of students to prefer English academic online content may stem from linguistic and cultural hierarchies. Specifically, originating from a milieu where fluency in English and literacy is highly esteemed and admired, students may regard online English information as more trustworthy compared to Chinese content.
As their preference for U.S. online sources was reinforced, they also continued to discover the depth and value of U.S. academic information. The university website, for instance, emerged as a particularly useful platform for academic-related information, much to the surprise and admiration of students such as Ling, who appreciated its affordances: When I was considering which courses to take next semester, my advisor recommended that I browse the course syllabi available on the university website. I was genuinely surprised by the sheer amount of valuable information that was available there… In China, I had never experienced such a comprehensive academic resource available through the university website…
Ling's experience highlights the evolving dispositions of students toward U.S. academic information, where they not only trust it to be authentic and reliable but also act upon it by exploring the possibilities of online information resources. While the preference for English academic information may suggest a certain degree of linguistic hierarchy, the discovery of the university website as a rich source of academic-related information is simply a practical reality. Indeed, it is a widely accepted fact that many Chinese university websites could significantly enhance their efficacy by improving their design and utilization, particularly with respect to the provision of critical information to students.
Divided Dispositions in Everyday Information Seeking
In their everyday information-seeking practices, students demonstrated a divided or fragmented transnational habitus. While they cultivated dispositions to believe in the authenticity of U.S. online information, as well as a desire to assimilate to this dominant knowledge system, their dispositions to act were not always aligned with this belief. Instead, they often continued to rely on community-based information sources on Chinese social media.
Chinese international students in this study exhibited transnationalism by efficiently navigating two language information environments for relevant everyday information. For instance, Xinxin used two browsers on her laptop to switch between Google and Baidu. Similarly, Cheng compared information and prices on both a Chinese housing app and Google search results when looking for an apartment. Cheng also adeptly switched between Chinese flight apps and U.S. online flight information to book her flight. These instances of fluidly moving between information environments demonstrate the students’ seamless integration of transnational information-seeking strategies into their daily routines.
While navigating multiple language information environments, Chinese international students in this study exhibited dispositions of believe, a cosmopolitan outlook and transnational identifications. For instance, upon her arrival, Haiyang posed all her questions to a Chinese international student group on WeChat, but after about 6 months, she recognized the user-friendliness and power of Google as a search engine. In China, she preferred to seek help from human resources rather than using Baidu, which she found to have cluttered search results and numerous advertisements. However, after coming to the United States, she was impressed by the wealth of information available online, including “parking regulations, the university swimming pool locations and hours, and even information on small businesses.” She found the information to be “professional, detailed, and regularly updated,” indicating a willingness to engage with and utilize new information sources.
Despite students’ evident dispositions to believe, they exhibited limited dispositions to act—they relied primarily on community-based platforms for obtaining identity-related information. Ling, for example, turned to a Chinese student study-abroad forum to learn how to obtain a Social Security number for a graduate assistantship because “I felt more identified with those students as we have shared background and needs.” Similarly, Xinxin consulted a Douban group, “2020s艰难留学组” (“2020s tough study-abroad group”) for information on the effects of “mixed injection” before deciding to receive the Pfizer vaccine. Yan sought medicine recommendations from a WeChat group when experiencing stomach pains. These practices highlight the importance of authenticity characterized by relatability and similarity, but also suggest that students do not need to assimilate into another information culture to function transnationally.
These incidents signal that simply relying on the host country's information may not be the most intuitive approach for international students studying abroad. According to Carlson and Schneickert (2021), the impact of transnationalism on habitus—the process of incorporating cultural and social norms—tends to be a gradual transformation, rather than a sudden switch from one state to another (i.e., from national to transnational). As international students incorporate transnational dispositions, they gradually modify their information-seeking habits, and their previous dispositions either transform or disappear. While students may exhibit transnational identifications or a cosmopolitan outlook, their search practices tend to be relatively passive. Below, Haiyang's words illustrate the contrast between her transnational beliefs and actions, highlighting the complex process of transnationalization and its impact on international students. I know Reddit is great. I hope I can often access Reddit to understand young Americans’ social events and discussions, which highlight our shared humanity despite cultural differences… However, the buzzword, slang, colloquial expressions, abbreviations are all difficult for me… I only occasionally visit and limit my English reading to academic materials…
Haiyang's perspective highlights that transnationalism affects her dispositions to believe (acknowledging Reddit's value) differently from her dispositions to act (infrequent visits). Although beliefs can be powerful in shaping perceptions, they are powerless when there are no conditions for dispositions to turn them into reality. Such conflicting or divided dispositions, or the gap between belief and objective conditions, can lead students to ambivalence, frustration, uncertainty, or being pulled in different directions (Soong et al., 2018).
The limited transnationalization of students’ information-seeking practices can be attributed to their unfamiliarity with the U.S. online information landscape. Beyond language barriers, students lacked knowledge and understanding of the U.S. online information ecosystem, relying primarily on Google and YouTube as starting points and being unaware of U.S. equivalents of popular Chinese apps. Ling and Zhan struggled to locate brief COVID-19 updates, while Yan was curious about “which social media platforms were popular among their American classmates beyond Twitter and Instagram.” Furthermore, this study confirmed that international students face significant challenges in evaluating the credibility of information in their host country's online environment (Sin & Kim, 2018). For example, Cheng found it difficult to assess the authenticity of U.S. information since “all webpages appeared professional and formal,” despite her ability to judge Chinese online information at a glance. Similarly, Zhan struggled to identify reliable car-related information due to his limited knowledge of “vehicle-related terms, purchasing procedures, and car insurance.” Yan relied primarily on domain names as an indicator of credibility, a strategy she rarely used in China's online context. In fact, navigating an unfamiliar online environment, they might encounter even greater challenges than domestic students in unpacking persuasive genres such as propaganda (Hobbs, 2020).
Activated Dispositions in Transnational News Consumption
Despite studying in the United States, all students in this study continued to consume online news from Chinese media sources, deeming them sufficient for learning about events in China and around the world. However, their transnational dispositions to believe, which were cultivated before and after studying abroad, allowed for opportunities for transnational dispositions to act in news consumption when desired.
The undergraduate specialization in English-related programs, study-abroad experiences, and educator identity of all students enabled them to develop transnationalized dispositions to believe—cosmopolitan attitudes, a globally oriented outlook, and an openness towards other cultures. They valued the co-existence of multiple perspectives, voices, and stances and were accepting of diverse opinions. Nonetheless, they were not yet acting transnationally to consume international news. That is, while they had internalized specific norms, values, or ideals, they had not yet developed the habits to act on them. As Ling observed: English news articles are authentic, with detailed interviews and quotes… Reading them can broaden my perspectives. But they tend to be too long and I feel like a TOEFL reading comprehension test, making me tired even thinking of it…
Students’ less transnationalized dispositions to act toward news consumption was shaped not only by their individual dispositions but also by external factors in the Western media environment. Some students expressed their aversion to Western news reports critical of China or with strong anti-China tones, particularly when the situations portrayed contradicted their personal experiences or what they had heard from their families in China. Haiyang, for example, remarked that “I find it disgusting to see news outlets deliberately defaming China, such as using images of Chinese people to illustrate articles about the origin of COVID-19 when its actual origin was still unknown!” Despite discomfort with unfair portrayal of their home country, students learned to recognize media bias and sensationalism and acknowledge the presence of different interpretations of events and issues. Zhan would “seek multiple sources and engage in open and respectful discussions with peers” to gain a balanced view and better understand different perspectives and cultures.
Nevertheless, under appropriate circumstances, students’ dispositions to act in transnational news consumption may be activated, as their beliefs about the importance of open-mindedness continue to inform their attitudes, values, and outlook. For example, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a surge in problematic information, these students regularly cross-checked U.S. pandemic updates from sources such as Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, they turned to Western news reports to verify Chinese news and gain insights into the situation. More prominently, they sought out U.S. sources to keep abreast of significant social, cultural, and political events, controversial issues, or China-related news. Zhan, the only male student who showed a keen interest in news, described his practices: When I come across controversial topics in Chinese media that interest me, like, the Taiwan issue, international relations, the Xinjiang cotton event, the Huawei trade ban, the origin of the coronavirus, and COVID-19 vaccines… I would naturally double-check them on Google or the specific news outlet's website… This helps me gain a broader and less biased perspective, and I can also seek common ground among news reports…
Zhan's example suggests that a cosmopolitan orientation and transnational disposition can shape transnational news consumption practices naturally. Instead of considering students’ reliance on Chinese sources as a contradiction or an indication of an insufficient transnational habitus, it is more appropriate to view this as a sign that transnationalization affects the habitual configuration of dispositions differently. Students’ dispositions in transnational news consumption can be seen as dormant and toned down but ready to become activated when suitable possibilities for action arise.
Students’ activated dispositions to act in transnational news consumption further enhanced their dispositions to believe. They recognized that consuming news from different sources allowed them to broaden their perspectives, think critically, and embrace diverse viewpoints instead of relying on a single narrative. Ling aptly summarized it by saying, “What I see on Baidu is not the whole world.” By reading news from a global perspective, students gained access to a wider range of information and were exposed to different political discourses, social expectations, cultural values, and community experiences beyond their own cultural context. Moreover, students’ news consumption habits helped them develop a bifocal approach, enabling them to examine an event from multiple angles and constantly compare these perspectives from their home country and the host country. This dual frame of reference allowed them to contextualize current events more effectively and consume diverse ways of presenting and interpreting news, which can be seen as a positive outcome of their transnational experiences.
Discussion and Implications
This study has provided insights into the active engagement of Chinese international students in recursive, dynamic, and flexible online information literacies that extend beyond linguistic, cultural, and digital boundaries, enabled by their multilingual proficiency and unique social positioning in the online information landscape. More significantly, this study has shed light on how the transnational habitus in online information seeking can be influenced by transnational processes, resulting in configurations of dispositions that are not fixed. Specifically, the research reveals that students have strengthened their reliance on U.S. academic information while simultaneously navigating between two distinct information spaces. As they encounter everyday life problems, they develop transnational dispositions that prioritize belief over action in using U.S.-based information. Furthermore, their dispositions in consuming transnational news are readily activated if suitable opportunities for action arise. Ultimately, the changes in dispositional configurations depend on the intensity, extent, and circumstances of students’ information-seeking practices, and how well they align with their previously acquired dispositions (Carlson & Schneickert, 2021).
The present study underscores the crucial significance of acknowledging the intricate and fluid character of multilingual international students’ information practices. It is imperative to comprehend their transnational habitus when they engage in online information seeking, while taking into consideration the variances in their transnational habitus contingent on their information-seeking objectives. The advancement of our understanding of the culturally specific online information-seeking literacies and habitus of these students has noteworthy implications for educators, librarians, and institutions that work with multilingual international students.
First, the findings of this study have significant implications for educators and instructional designers regarding the diverse information needs and practices of multilingual international students and the importance of providing tailored support specific to their unique contexts. Faculty and instructors can integrate information literacy and research skills into their curriculum, empowering multilingual international students with the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate academic resources effectively. Moreover, they can create a more inclusive and supportive learning environment for international students by recognizing and honoring their cross-cultural assets and multilingual capacity and considering their challenges. For example, instructors can encourage students to engage with information from diverse sources, evaluate news coverage by comparing multiple viewpoints, and foster the exchange of perspectives between students from diverse national and sociocultural backgrounds. In addition, instructors can provide additional support, including cultural orientation and mentorship programs that address the unique challenges of studying abroad. By implementing these strategies, faculty and instructors can better support the success of international students in their academic pursuits, enhancing their academic achievement and overall experience in higher education.
Furthermore, this study highlights the crucial role that librarians can play in supporting the diverse information needs and practices of multilingual international students. By conceptualizing and designing information literacy workshops, training, or curricula based on international students’ transnational character of information seeking, librarians can empower these students with the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate the complex and dynamic online information landscape. To achieve this, librarians should move beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to information literacy instruction and instead, build upon students’ cultural ways of information literacy practices that they bring into the U.S. classroom. Furthermore, librarians can familiarize multilingual international students with the U.S. information ecosystem and the best practices for evaluating the credibility of information in the U.S. online information context. By adopting these strategies, librarians can help multilingual international students develop a deep and well-informed understanding of the U.S. online information ecosystem and enhance their information literacy skills.
Finally, an understanding of international students’ transnational habitus and online information-seeking literacies can also have a wider impact on U.S. higher education institutions in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Academic institutions can prioritize the development of policies and practices that are inclusive of diverse sociocultural backgrounds, including providing multilingual information resources and advocating for the needs and rights of international students. By implementing these strategies, academic institutions can create a more equitable and supportive environment that empowers international students to succeed and thrive in their academic pursuits abroad, ultimately enhancing the overall academic community.
The recognition that a sojourn overseas presents both a challenge and an opportunity further demonstrates the continued need to explore multilingual international student information literacy as a process of engaging with complex and evolving online information landscapes within a new context. This study has demonstrated how students exhibit different habitual dispositions when seeking online information for various purposes. Future research could longitudinally track the development of their information-seeking literacy practices from their first semester through the end of their degree program, as transnational dispositions may change over time (Carlson & Schneickert, 2021). Researchers may also move beyond self-reported data to document and analyze how international students assess the credibility of U.S. online information.
Conclusion
This study represents a significant contribution to the field of information literacy by adopting a transnational lens to investigate the online information literacy practices of Chinese international students in U.S. higher education institutions. By challenging assumptions that international students readily acculturate themselves to the host country's online resources or develop a single transnational habitus, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of their diverse information needs and practices. The findings suggest that information literacy education that acknowledges and leverages students’ linguistic and transnational resources can be highly relevant to their experiences and beneficial to their academic success overseas. Moreover, by recognizing and valuing international students’ transnational habits of mind and multilingual literacies as assets, U.S. academic institutions can promote diversity, inclusion, and intercultural understanding, ultimately contributing to the development of global citizens who are well-equipped to navigate today's interconnected information economy.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
