Multimedia technology is assumed to relatively enhance students' learning and increase the motivation and involvements of learners. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020, schooling and education have been severely disrupted. Schooling was suspended by lockdown policy with the result that courses were offered by online instruction in response to urgent calls in all educational settings. This article reports on results from a medium-scale study undertaken to investigate the learner presence of online learners towards media environments from gender, grade to regions in secondary educational setting in China during the pandemic. The current study employed a questionnaire survey and participants are schools (n = 12) and students (n = 4848). The findings of the study have shed light on the learner presence of online learners towards media environments during the covid-19 pandemic when secondary education was completely proceeded via online instructions. More importantly, the results of the medium-scale study illuminated impacts of media applications by online learners during their secondary education. In conclusion, the current study has generated a better insight into online learners and has implications for online pedagogy and secondary educational contexts where gender differences, grade differences and regional differences should be taken into account in media applications.