Apports et limites de l'expérimentation comme moyen d'investigation des effets éducatifs des médias

Abstract

Communication sciences generally analyse media either as texts, or from the standpoint of their production and reception contexts. Experimental methods are of little use in these cases. Instead, the study of educational communication in a semio-cognitive perspective needs appropriate methods to investigate interactions between the semiotic formats used by the media and their users’ cognitive operations. This article considers the contributions and limitations of the experimental method in this context. We conclude on the necessary articulation of methods in communication sciences, depending on the research questions being examined.