Media consumption and self-perceived multilingual identity in short-video vlog-assisted informal digital language...

Short video vlogs have become a prominent site of informal digital language learning, yet most research has emphasized skills, motivation, and willingness to communicate, with comparatively little attention to social affective and identity related self-perceptions. This study examined how short video vlog assisted informal digital language learning is associated with self-perceived multilingual identity, whether social presence and learning engagement are modeled as serial intermediate variables, and whether digital literacy conditions these associations.

A cross sectional questionnaire was completed by Chinese university language learners (N = 648). A serial indirect-association model and a moderated conditional-process model were estimated with 5,000 bootstrap resamples, together with robustness and sensitivity analyses.

Vlog assisted informal learning was positively associated with self-perceived multilingual identity both directly and indirectly through social presence and learning engagement, and the serial indirect association running from social presence to learning engagement was significant. Digital literacy moderated all three associations originating in vlog learning, each being stronger at higher levels of digital literacy, and every index of moderated mediation was significant.

Everyday vlog based informal practice is associated with self-perceived multilingual identity to the extent that the environment is experienced as socially present and engaging, and to the extent that learners possess the digital literacy to act on the affordances such environments make available. The findings extend social presence, engagement, and self-perceived multilingual identity scholarship into informal short video settings and underscore the value of careful data screening in survey research on digital learning.