Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

This research investigates the shift of citizen journalism during the 21st century with special attention to how new technologies affected the whole process of news production, distribution, and public participation. With the help of online platforms and the internet, a great deal of society has been given the opportunity to speak up and has started to participate in the news-making and distribution through social media and other internet channels. This change of events has made it difficult for the previously existing power of gatekeeping to be held by professional journalists who determined the credibility and impartiality of the news, besides having an impact on public opinion and the entire mass media world. In order to investigate the mentioned issues, a quantitative approach was employed. The research data were collected through an online survey where the participants were self-reported and were 486 in number who usually participate in citizen journalism. The replies of the participants were evaluated using descriptive statistics, and reliability analyses were performed to assess the consistency of the measures. To investigate people’s beliefs about the credibility, bias, and their impact on the audience, latent construct modelling was applied with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) included. The survey results reveal that citizen reporting gives rise to speedy, unpretentious, and public-influencing news; albeit, it struggles against a major trustworthiness issue caused by misinformation and bias. The corresponding results stress the necessity of equipping people with media literacy skills, conducting verification practices, and adhering to moral standards so that the trust in citizen journalism is maintained and its democratizing potential is unlocked. These revelations are a great source of information for decision makers, media, and well-informed citizens.

This article offers a theoretically-grounded case study considering the role of Critical Media Project (CMP) as an educational initiative and intervention that sits at the juncture of media literacy and social justice. CMP fills key gaps in media literacy education by using a critical media literacy frame to foster critical consumption, critical creation, and cultural competencies around seven key social identities (race and ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+, socio-economic class, religion, ability and age). In turn, through a media-rich website, curriculum and other programs, CMP helps youth imagine a better future with the requisite tools, resources and power to challenge dominant systems and structures of power.

Social media has become a dominant force in civic life amid widespread concerns about its role in political polarisation and in the spread of misinformation. To prepare citizens to take on these challenges, we need civic education that teaches youth to be capable and responsible consumers, conveyors and producers of online information. To do so, teachers must position students as epistemic agents, fostering the skills they need to engage with online information. In this article, we present the first iteration of a design-based research project on social media and civic action. The project prepares high school students in rural, urban and suburban settings located in Northern California (USA) to engage with issues that resonate with them, to critically examine information about these issues from online sources and to use social media as a vehicle to connect with, inform and mobilise the public. We present the basic design principles that teachers have used to support apt epistemic performance, focusing on the epistemic aims (creating knowledge products that inspire civic action), ideals (taking personal responsibility for the accuracy of information when posting) and reliable processes (sourcing, fact checking and correctly representing information) embedded in their units of instruction. Drawing on teacher interviews and curriculum, we explore the affordances of the curriculum to promote civic action by leveraging student engagement in social media, while also challenging them to critically examine how knowledge is produced and disseminated on social media. We conclude with a discussion of how this work intersects with the aims and methods of social pedagogy.

Amid rising concerns about “fake news,” efforts have emerged to explain the spread and impact of misinformation on youth civic engagement. These efforts have focused primarily on the role of social media in exposing youth to factually inaccurate civic information and the factors that influence the ability to discern the accuracy of such information. A less explored aspect has been the impact of the rise of “outrage language,” defined as language that evokes strong emotional responses (e.g., fear, anger, disgust) that communications scholars have documented as playing a larger role in political discourse over the past few decades (Berry & Sobieraj, 2014). This article draws on three recent studies of digital media and youth civic engagement to discuss (a) the role of participatory media in exposing youth to outrage language in civic discourse, (b) the challenges of balancing attention to the emotional and factual elements when participating in online civic discourse, and (c) how the development of online counterpublics through high school classrooms can help students create models of productive online discourse. The article concludes with suggestions for future research and educational interventions that address the challenges associated with outrage language.

The study explores the evolving patterns of political participation among youth in the digital era, focusing on how technological advancements have redefined the ways in which young people engage with democratic processes. As digital platforms become increasingly integrated into daily life, they offer new spaces for civic expression, communication, and activism, particularly among the younger generation. This research aims to examine the current trends in youth political participation, identify key factors that drive such engagement, and assess the implications for democratic development. The study is grounded in a qualitative research methodology, employing document analysis and descriptive interpretation to explore youth behaviors, motivations, and challenges related to political participation. It highlights the importance of digital literacy, civic education, and critical thinking as foundational components in fostering informed and responsible participation. Findings reveal that while traditional forms of political engagement such as voting remain essential, there is a noticeable shift toward digital forms of participation, including online advocacy, social media activism, and participation in virtual forums and campaigns. The flexibility and immediacy of digital tools allow youth to express opinions, build networks, and organize movements more effectively than ever before. However, the study also notes that while digital engagement offers new opportunities, it also presents challenges such as misinformation, digital divides, and the potential for superficial involvement. To enhance meaningful youth political participation, it is crucial to implement strategies that combine digital empowerment with education that promotes ethical responsibility, critical inquiry, and community engagement. This study underscores the potential of youth as key actors in shaping political futures and emphasizes the need to support their active involvement through inclusive, informed, and digitally adaptive frameworks.

In this paper, through an exploration into our experiences as educators concerned with marginalized populations of learners in secondary and postsecondary settings, we argue for a pedagogy that brings together the realities of 21st century literacy practices with critical media literacy. We present a framework for teaching critical media literacy that addresses the complex facets of equity in 21st century literacy practices

Digital literacy initiatives are crucial in empowering marginalized communities by integrating technology into their daily lives. This study examines the effectiveness of various digital literacy programs aimed at enhancing the technological skills of marginalized groups, thereby promoting socio-economic development and inclusion. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, this research combines quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to assess the impact of digital literacy initiatives on participants' skills, confidence, and socio-economic status. The findings indicate significant improvements in digital competencies, which correlate with increased employment opportunities, better access to services, and enhanced community participation. Furthermore, the study highlights the challenges faced by these initiatives, including limited access to resources, technological infrastructure, and resistance to change. The research concludes with recommendations for policymakers and practitioners to improve the design and implementation of digital literacy programs, ensuring they are inclusive, sustainable, and effective in bridging the digital divide. By focusing on the transformative potential of technology integration, this study underscores the importance of digital literacy as a foundational element for achieving broader socio-economic goals.

This article asks what digital literacy tactics low-literate Dutch adults employ to bypass their low-literacy to be able to participate in digital society, and what the consequences are for their socio-digital exclusion and inclusion. It contributes to a better understanding of the impact of digitalization for low-literate citizens, and the linguistic and digital barriers encountered in everyday life. Drawing upon participant observations and semistructured interviews with low-literate adult citizens in four libraries, a community center, and a school for adult education (N=73), this article develops a taxonomy of five tactics which enables low-literate citizens to digitally participate despite their linguistic and digital barriers: (1) informal support structures, (2) formal support structures, (3) non-written communication, (4) translation software, and (5) optimal character recognition. We show how these tactics of appropriating the affordances of information and communications technologies (ICTs), and making use of social networks enable low-literate Dutch citizens to participate in socially situated manners, making use of social support structures and digital literacies developed in relation to “foreign” languages. Consequently, this study counters the stigma on such marginalized groups, who are often assumed to be unable or unwilling to participate, and presents them as not adhering to the dominant discourse of participatory culture. Hence, the added value of this study is threefold: (1) it centers the capabilities of low-literate citizens stemming from social capital and obfuscated linguistic potential, (2) it gives visibility toward more hidden everyday (digital) practices of marginalized subgroups with a larger distance toward the digital society, and (3) it foregrounds the lived experiences of the user and their (limited) use of ICTs, and how tactics are developed and practiced to bypass linguistic and/or digital barriers showing situated agency and problem-solving capacities. We argue that digital literacies should not be considered as a prerequisite for digital participation and inclusion, as our findings show that low-literate Dutch citizens are a highly diverse group that are capable of participating, despite their low (digital)- literacy. However, they do so in socially situated and non-written manners, in line with their digital and linguistic capabilities and barriers.

Digital literacy training programs (DLTPs) are influential in developing digital skills to help build a more inclusive and participatory ecosystem. This study presents a review of 86 studies related to DLTPs for marginalised populations in developed and developing countries. It aims to understand (a) the profile of DLTPs, (b) the digital competences incorporated in the training curriculum and (c) tangible outcomes of Internet use post-training. The review indicated that developed countries focus more upon developing digital literacy in elderly populations. In contrast, the focus still lies in developing digital literacy among people with low skills and education levels in developing countries. The training curriculums focus mainly on developing information-seeking and communication competencies, besides the basic operations of digital devices. Most of the studies reported an increase in the personal-level outcomes around health, leisure and self-actualisation achieved post-training. This study can help policymakers, practitioners, and educational researchers improve the scope and quality of educational programs and contribute to people's digital empowerment and well-being.

Robust literature identifies news media’s sordid history of presenting disparaging depictions of Black identity and its subsequent influence on non-Black audiences. However, research addressing Black viewers, their varied group identities, and protective factors that minimize this influence, has received limited attention. Accordingly, this study examines the relationship between Black individuals’ political identities, news media consumption, critical media literacy skills, and their collective influence on audiences’ self and group esteem as well as news media’s perceptions of the group. Results posit a favorable relationship between variables, specifically, consumption of news media, increased media literacy, and Black viewers’ esteem

For the present study, we developed a television (TV) drama-based media literacy program for Taiwanese adolescents. A quasi-experimental design was used to determine the effects of the program on their media literacy and gender role attitudes. Participants were ninth-graders (aged 14 and 15 years, 50.6% male) from eight classes at one school which were randomly divided into two groups (four classes each). The experimental group (n = 126) received a three-unit media literacy program based on the constructs of the Message Interpretation Process Model and utilizing popular TV idol dramas as the material. The control group (n = 122) did not receive any gender or media education. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine mean changes in participants’ media literacy and gender role attitudes at pre-test, immediate post-test, and at one-month lagged post-test. We found that the experimental group showed significantly better media literacy abilities and more positive gender role attitudes at post-intervention compared to the control group. At the one-month lagged post-test, compared to pre-test, the experimental group had significantly better performance in media literacy and gender role attitudes. The intervention in the present study could be used as the reference for school educators to guide adolescents into breaking gender stereotypes on TV dramas and to reducing their frequency of watching them.

Media scholars see audiences as agentic, and people’s relationships with media texts and tools as complex and not easily predictable. At the same time, we are reminded that media representations of gender are ideological, and that media environment does contribute to the development of our gender identities. The article argues that it is crucial to help people understand this complexity through education and discusses the need to create an interdisciplinary approach to media and gender classes. This approach would combine a theoretical framework based on media studies and gender studies with best practices developed within media literacy education. The article offers analysis of educational materials created by three nonprofit organizations, in order to elucidate the main challenges that the interdisciplinary approach toward media and gender classes should address.

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is a strong tool, cutting across educational, cultural and social contexts. It can help overcome disinformation, stereotypes and intolerance conveyed through some media and in online spaces. Here, stimulating critical empathy is one of the vital components and there are many stakeholders that have a role to play in this dimension of MIL. This is especially relevant today, as the world is witnessing an unprecedented increase of polarization, hate speech, radicalization and extremism happening both offline and online. Often embedded in a “discourse of fear”, it challenges human rights and disrupts human solidarity. UNESCO’s approach to preventing violent extremism has three prongs: 1) through education, 2) promoting the role of free, independent and pluralistic media and 3) celebrating cultural diversity through alternative narratives on social media.For media and other information providers to serve their purpose, we need critical minds in the public, which means to develop MIL programmes at the national, regional and international levels.

This paper examines the utility of youth participatory action research (YPAR) and critical media literacy as strategies to promote the sociopolitical development (SPD) of Black youth. We use the case example of Our Voices, an afterschool program implemented with Black high school students in which participants analyzed the representation of Black characters in television and developed action to resist historical stereotypes. We situate Our Voices in SPD theory to demonstrate how approaches from YPAR and critical media literacy can be used to promote Black youth’s analysis of racial issues, agency in making social change, and sociopolitical action. We also highlight the utility of YPAR and critical media literacy programs as opportunity structures for youth to receive resources and mentorship as they engage as advocates in their community. We conclude with lessons learned from the implementation of Our Voices and with recommendations for research and practice with Black youth.

This study focuses on the role of media infacilitating and inhibiting the accessibility of stereotypes primed by race-related news stories. SpeciJcally, it examines experimentally the effects of two strategies for reducing stereotype accessibility: an audience-centered approach that explicitly instructs audiences to be critical media consumers, a goal of media literacy training; and a message-centered approach using stereotype-disconfirming, cou n ter-s tereotypical news stories. Participants viewed either a literacy or control video before reading stereotypical or counter-stereotypical news stories about African Americans or Asian Indians. Implicit stereotypes were measured using response latencies to hostile and benevolent stereotypical words in a lexical decision task. Results suggest that a combination of audience-centered and messagecentered approaches may reduce racial stereotypes activated by news stories.

Media literacy, the critical analysis and deconstruction of media messages, has the potential to promote favorable attitudes toward members of racial minority groups. This study reports on the development and implementation of two types of media literacy interventions (i.e., critical and stereotype) aimed at enhancing college students’ attitudes toward Blacks and Latinos. Students from 5 sections of the same course took part in a quasi-experiment and were randomly assigned to 1 of the 2 interventions or to a control group. Students’ attitudes were measured at 3 different times during the study: 6 weeks before the intervention, immediately following the intervention, and 6 weeks after the intervention. Both interventions enhanced students’ attitudes toward Blacks and Latinos but the stereotype intervention was more effective than the critical one, both for short- and long-term effects, as the latter disappeared in the critical condition. Attitudes of students in the control group remained the same throughout the study. Implications address how to use media literacy to enhance conversation about race relations.

This research series replicated and extended earlier findings of Gardikiotis, Martin, and Hewstone (2004), who examined via content analysis UK media representations of numeric majority and minority groups. Using news articles from North and South Dakota, where majority/minority population characteristics mirror those of the UK in terms of number and power, Study 1 replicated the patterns of results found in Gardikiotis et al. Study 2, in which articles from California newspapers were analyzed, yielded findings contrary to Gardikiotis et al. and our Dakota analyses: Minority headlines were more frequent in California, and majority articles were longer than minority articles. Consistent with UK and Dakotas findings, majority headlines in California were associated with politics and identity adjectives, whereas minority headlines were linked to social issues and ethnicity-based adjectives. Arguably, these differences occurred because in California, unlike the UK and the Dakotas, Whites are not simultaneously the social power and the numeric majority. Variations in power and number associated with majority and minority status were discussed in explaining differences across contexts, and in signaling possible shortcomings in the conceptualization and methods used to investigate minority and majority influence.

Stereotypes and prejudices are catalysts and creators of various injustices and conflicts within societies. Their presence in media contents are enormous and therefore their influence as well. Prejudices and stereotypes often cause social injustice and unfairness for those who are their sufferers and victims. When this happens, then there appear on the surface very serious humanistic and moral questions. It never overcomes an important context of social justice and therefore it is vital to devote a serious attention towards their overcoming. Alongside the presentation of several basic elements regarding prejudices and stereotypes concept, article focuses on significant presence of stereotypes and prejudices in various media contents. One of the ways for overcoming prejudices and stereotypes in multicultural society is media literacy. In contemporary developed societies, media literacy presents an important part of wider education, which immanently strengthens intercultural dialogue within entire society and better understanding and mutual respect among different members of community.

In this article we explore the utility but also limitations of gender stereotyping lessons, a common undertaking by teachers introducing media analysis to youth. We document our collaboration with a Canadian high school teacher as she translated her understanding of critical media literacy into practice in a unit addressing questions about the gendered nature of pop music videos. Informed by feminist cultural studies, we explore challenges that arose when teaching about gender stereotyping. Factors that circumscribed deeper inquiry included (a) discussing whether media texts were unrealistic rather than focusing on meaning-making practices; (b) inattention to hidden yet active media texts that worked to sustain dominant meanings; (c) lack of access to counter-frames; (d) inattention to intersectionality so that gender was conflated with sex and sexuality, allowing heteronormativity to go unrecognized; and (e) the ambiguities of how sexual power operates in commercial pop culture, making it difficult for students to discern feminist parody

Popular media such as films, television programmes/commercials and magazines have become the dominant source through which children learn about others and their world, develop attitudes and beliefs as manifested in media expressions, and formulate their sense of identity. Popular media have enormous influence on children who are constantly immersing themselves in value-laden media images that perpetuate overgeneralised representations of cultural groups, in particular, lesbian and gay stereotypes. By critically examining media images in the art room, media literacy art education offers art teachers and their students an opportunity to nurture their aesthetic sensibilities, social awareness and the media literacy necessary to resist and challenge prejudiced, dehumanised or unjust social practices. This article explores issues of lesbian and gay stereotypes in the media, and proposes using media images as a pedagogical device to help students deconstruct them.

This article provides a review of the research record on the potential for media literacy education to intervene in the media’s influence on racial and ethnic stereotypes, and explores the theoretical concepts that underlie these efforts. It situates media literacy theory and practice within particular emphases in the field and synthesizes qualitative and quantitative studies. Quantitative research on the effect of media literacy training and mediated counterstereotypes on reducing racial/ethnic prejudice is described. In addition, we report qualitative data from an ongoing study of early adolescents who took part in a media literacy curriculum on stereotypes. The research record reveals that although the topic is severely understudied, media literacy education holds great promise for its ability to shape media-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors and encourage an active and critical stance toward media.

This paper addresses the issues of knowledge production, which interrogate and disrupt dominant narratives that subjugate Black females related to their identity. We contextualize our discussion through the lens of critical consciousness and critical media literacy by exploring the role of popular media in identity development/imposition for Black females. We outline issues of Black female identity politics by framing them through the description of critical media literacy as a 21st century literacy, with Black Feminist Theory as our theoretical lens. Similar discussions have remained centered in the field of Media Studies and there has been inadequate attention to these issues in the education realm, particularly as they relate to Black females and their self-concept and self-empowerment.

This article presents findings from action research conducted in a graduate level course with practicing K–12 educators. In this article, I consider the usefulness of critical media literacy in the graduate classroom as I engaged students in discussions about multicultural issues including race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. Through an examination of student presentations and field notes collected over the course of the semester, I found the graduate student participants were typically quite savvy at evaluating the messages they receive from media. Further, I found the incorporation of popular media into the classroom helped students grapple with typically foreign and often theoretically dense concepts like unconscious racism and heteronormativity, as well as theories like critical race theory, intersectionality, and queer theory. The graduate student participants were able to see deep connections between text/theory and media and often used various media to illustrate theory in quite complex ways. Lastly, engaging with texts of everyday life and using visual representations helped students interrogate the concepts explored in the course and provided students access to theory otherwise regarded as inaccessible.

The article explores how the concept of intersectionality has become increasingly important in understanding identities related to race, gender, sexuality, and class. Sloop examines queer theory alongside racial politics and argues that identities cannot be understood through a single category alone. Instead, social experiences are shaped by the interaction of multiple identities and systems of power.

Academic libraries increasingly offer information literacy instruction online. This mixed methods study, innovatively focused on graduate professional studies students, confirms that the provision of asynchronous modules represents an effective and scalable method in this regard. When Georgetown’s SCS librarians embedded their faculty-endorsed modules in courses’ Canvas, the majority of students engaged with the modules in the order and scope planned for by the librarians, reported building key information literacy competencies, and were generally satisfied with the modules’ content and design. They also perceived the modules as a valuable solo instructional resource, pointing to their viability to achieve budgetary and staffing efficiencies.