Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

This study examines critical digital literacy practices among 390 Black girls, ages 13–17. Through a data sharing initiative with a community organization, we conducted a qualitative analysis of 3120 narrative responses describing their views of technology. Grounded in Black feminist epistemologies, our study found that the girls reconciled their views of technology with their existing standpoints and desires for social change. Our findings highlight how Black girls leverage technologies to account for their ways of knowing and existing in the world, including using technology to author activist identities and express feelings of agency. Our findings challenge researchers and educators to expand their understanding of critical digital literacy in ways that honor Black girls’ complex experiences and existing practices.

One need not look far to observe that the political discourse is highly polarized. The literature on activism and adult learning is eclectic and draws on several broad traditions of education and social theory. The purpose of this paper is to trouble the polarization of political rhetoric and how it takes away from healthy political dialogue in civic society, and to explore some understandings offered in social and political movement theory as analytical tools for critical media and civic literacy. Through the exploration of social movement theories beyond academic literature, we can model how to apply various theoretical understandings to current world events occurring around us, how to identify and critically think about the framing of political and social issues, and how to recognize the types of collective identities that are being performed and promoted. We can resist these polarizations through thoughtful questioning, social imagination, and real discursive political agency.

The term active citizenship is defined as participation in civil society, community and/or political life, characterized by mutual respect and non-violence and in accordance with human rights and democracy within the European context (Hoskins & Mascherini, 2009). Promoting active citizenship is one of the European Commission’s strategies for increasing social cohesion and reducing the democratic deficit across European countries within the context of the wider Lisbon process. Developing citizen awareness, knowledge and skill level of democratic rights, sensitiveness to social issues and defense against negative impact of media messages are among these objectives. European Commission considers media literacy an extremely important factor for active citizenship in today's information society. Within the European context active citizenship is defined as the combination of four dimensions; (1) protest and social change, (2) community life, (3) representative democracy and (4) democratic values (Hoskins & Mascherini, 2009). Teachers’ perceptions of citizenship are among the frequently researched subjects in terms of both their effect on students’ perception of citizenship and as a citizen. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between teacher candidates’ level of media literacy and active citizenship, in terms of their participation level to protest and social change. Survey method is used to collect data in this casual comparative research. Sample of the study is 1101 freshman and senior teacher candidates studying in Faculty of Education at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in the academic year of 2011-2012. The relationship between media literacy level and participation level to protest and social change is explored after controlling for the effect of socio-economic factors. It is explored that there is a significant relationship between media literacy level and participation level to protest and social change which is preserved after controlling for socio-economic factors. According to results, this study discusses how to handle digital and media literacy education in formal and informal settings in teacher education programs in relation to active citizenship.

The present study aims to investigate pathways to political participation among children and youth. From the perspective of the cognitive mediation model, we attempt to analyze youth participation by considering two socializing factors (i.e., school education for media literacy and family intervention for technology use) as external antecedents to the intrinsic process of cognitive mediation involving surveillance motivation, elaboration/reflection, and engagement. Our extended cognitive mediation model on youth participation is tested with national survey data collected in South Korea with the use of a multistage random sampling technique. Results show that media literacy education and parental mediation nurture surveillance motivation, and indirectly increase youth participation through motivation, reflection, and online news engagement. Implications for the cognitive mediation model and youth participation are discussed.

In recent years, young people engaged in political discourse and civic action online. U.S.-based social movements centered on equity issues, such as Black Lives Matter, Dreamers, and March for Our Lives, engaged young people in shaping and publicizing the goals of these movements through digital platforms. Increasingly in communities at the margins, young Americans need digital and media literacy skills to supplement contentious education restrictions within the United States, as with many state bills curtailing the teaching of LGBTQIA+ histories and critical race theory. With these considerations in mind, our team conducted a national study of impactful media literacy in the United States. The study included an extensive literature review, interviews with key stakeholders, and a national survey of educators within the United States. Aimed at understanding the practices in formal and informal learning spaces, the research process inspired the creation of a field guide focused on offering resources for equity-focused media literacy practices that can support educators where professional structures could not, a core finding from our study on impactful media literacy. This paper shares the process for creating the Field Guide for Equitable Media Literacy Practices, developed and published as a form of public-facing scholarship to encourage all media literacy practitioners to undergo a transformative learning process. The field guide offers a series of approaches to equitable media literacy practices centered on equity and inclusion. While the research is U.S.-based, we believe the practices suggested within the field guide apply globally, especially as we see an increase in youth movements that impact beyond geographic and cultural boundaries.

This study examines the evolving role of citizen journalism in contemporary democratic discourse, analyzing how digital technologies have transformed traditional media landscapes and enabled new forms of civic participation. Through a comprehensive review of international literature and empirical analysis, this research investigates the democratic implications of citizen journalism as both a complement to and challenge for professional journalism. The findings reveal that while citizen journalism enhances democratic participation by providing diverse perspectives and facilitating community engagement, it also presents challenges related to information credibility, ethical standards, and potential polarization. The study concludes that citizen journalism serves as a crucial component of democratic discourse when properly integrated with professional journalism standards and supported by appropriate regulatory frameworks.

This study develops a model for strengthening citizen journalism through local communities as a form of public participation in transparent and accountable governance. The research addresses the increasing public role in disseminating information amid rapid technological growth, which often lacks structured support and leads to misinformation. Using a qualitative descriptive case study approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participatory observations, and documentation, then analyzed thematically with triangulation for validity. The findings indicate that strengthening citizen journalism through local communities relies on three main pillars: (1) an inclusive and coordinated community organization, (2) an integrated two-way communication system between citizens and government (G2C), and (3) local government support through media literacy training, verification mechanisms, and legal protection. Case studies of Radio KDS 8 and Community Information Groups (KIM) in Malang demonstrate that empowered local communities effectively channel public aspirations, verify information, and serve as communicative bridges between citizens and government. The proposed model offers a strategic policy framework to promote participatory governance, enhance digital democracy resilience, and build public trust. Theoretically and practically, it contributes to improving information accountability, reducing misinformation, and strengthening citizen engagement in local governance.

What role should libraries play to ensure citizens develop the competencies they need to fulfill their vital civic roles in our democracy? Alarms raised over widening civic knowledge gaps have prompted a renewed commitment to building more civically literate, active citizens. Like their counterparts in schools and universities, librarians teach many of the skills and dispositions that citizens need to participate in civic life. Yet their information literacy frameworks equip twenty-first century learners primarily for success in college and career, not citizenship. With schools and colleges launching new initiatives to bolster civic participation, librarians must join forces with other civic literacy proponents to empower citizens to emerge as civic agents that cocreate their future together. While the nation's great experiment in democracy undergoes a momentous test, libraries must assert their role in fostering civic literacy as central to their mission as cornerstones of democracy.

The rapid evolution of social media has fundamentally reshaped the way individuals consume information, interact, and make decisions, with algorithm-driven platforms playing a central role in shaping public opinion and influencing economic choices. This study investigates the interplay between social media algorithms, public discourse, and consumer decision-making by analyzing both qualitative insights and quantitative trends from contemporary research. Results indicate that algorithmic curation fosters selective exposure, filter bubbles, and echo chambers, thereby shaping public opinion and polarizing online communities. At the same time, social media serves as a powerful driver of economic behavior, influencing consumer preferences, purchasing intentions, and market dynamics through targeted advertising and influencer-driven content. While platforms democratize information access and create opportunities for engagement, the increasing opacity and manipulation of algorithmic systems raise concerns over accountability, transparency, and user autonomy. This paper contributes to the literature by offering a multidimensional perspective on how digital platforms simultaneously empower and constrain individuals, highlighting the necessity of regulatory frameworks, media literacy initiatives, and cross-disciplinary approaches to address the societal and economic challenges posed by algorithmic governance.

In recent years, the growing importance of platforms for producing, sharing, and consuming news has been evident. However, several challenges associated with this growth have emerged, such as those linked with disinformation and news authorship. In this article, which uses part of the data from a more extensive study of local media in the central region of Portugal, we present the results from three focus groups with editors, journalists, and local media consumers. Through this information, we try to understand their perceptions about how platforms change news work and distribution, affecting journalists and the public. The focus groups results showed that although local media professionals consider it essential to be present on distribution platforms, they are concerned about the inability of audiences to distinguish the content created by local media from others that circulate online. We believe the results presented are significant to reflect on changes made by platforms to journalism and to think in terms of new strategies of media literacy concerning how and what ways platforms are involved in news distribution infrastructures.

In the current media landscape, we are flooded with a constant stream of disinformation, misinformation, and mal-information. This, in combination with fake news sensationalism, rumors, and a variety of chaotic manifestations from “the digital underbelly of the networked web” (Mihailidis, 2018, p. 152), make a potent combination of information warfare and popular culture. When these currents mix with social and political gaps and tensions, the result may prove to be disastrous. One, perhaps predictable, aspect of this “post-truth condition” is a growing distrust in the models, ideals, and institutions of democracy. Hence we can all agree on the importance of giving children (and others) the skills and techniques to dismantle and counteract disinformation and misinformation, fake news, hate speech and uncivilized online behavior. Often these matters are as discussed under umbrella terms like ”Media and information literacy”(MIL) or ”Digital competence”(DC)(Carlsson, 2019).

Previous research has highlighted the ambiguous experience of algorithmic news curation whereby people are simultaneously comfortable with algorithms, but also concerned about the underlying data collection practices. The present article builds on media dependency theory and news-finds-me (NFM) perceptions to explore this tension. Empirically, we analyze original survey data from six European countries (Germany, Sweden, France, Greece, Poland, and Italy, n = 2,899) to investigate how young Europeans’ privacy concerns and attitudes toward algorithms affect NFM. We find that a more positive attitude toward algorithms and more privacy concerns are related to stronger NFM. The study highlights power asymmetries in platformized news use and suggests that the ambivalent experiences might be a result of algorithm dependency, whereby individuals rely on algorithms in platformized news use to meet their information needs, despite accompanying risks and concerns.

This article investigates the formation and operation of algorithmic audiences within platformized media environments, focusing on how processes of identity, influence, and power intersect to shape audience behaviour. It seeks to theorise the algorithmically produced publics that emerge from data-driven engagement on social media, streaming services, and online gaming platforms. The study employs a critical conceptual synthesis of current literature in media studies, platform capitalism, and communication theory, supported by illustrative case studies of user-platform interactions. Through thematic analysis of secondary sources (2017–2023), it maps how algorithmic recommendation systems, identity performances, and influence mechanisms mutually reinforce each other to establish dynamic audience configurations. Findings reveal that algorithmic audiences are neither passive recipients nor purely autonomous actors, but datafied hybrid entities produced through collaborative interplays of user self-presentation, platform logics, and commercial surveillance. Identity construction increasingly depends on visibility metrics, while influence is redistributed through opaque recommendation architectures producing echo chambers and filter bubbles. Power asymmetries deepen as platforms gain control over information flows, data extraction, and behavio ural manipulation, raising serious ethical and regulatory concerns. Algorithmic audiences represent a paradigm shift in the understanding of contemporary media publics. Their emergence compels scholars and policymakers to move beyond traditional audience theories and to confront new questions surrounding data ownership, platform governance, and audience agency in the age of automated curation. Future research must address how regulatory frameworks and ethical design interventions can protect user autonomy while ensuring transparency and accountability within platformised media ecosystems.

Problems with meaning arise when symbols interact in digital communication on social media between users. Different messages may be interpreted differently due to symbolic exchanges between social media users. This paper examines how message meaning relates to current social media challenges. The data used to address the issue was obtained from an online survey of social media users, and the semiotics method was employed (denotation and connotation). This study concludes that people who utilize social media have a higher propensity to read the news and become more authentic by sharing it. To read social media text messages denotatively has ideological consequences for users and connotative implications. Social media messaging's ideological impact creates the purpose of action (change of view on an issue, for example, COVID-19 vaccination). This paper contributes to digital media literacy, which develops critical thinking abilities based on digital knowledge by choosing to read news content. Besides, this paper contributes to the capacity to critically create content based on digital culture (positive news content) and offer critical commentary based on digital ethics (politeness in providing language). This article discusses the benefits and importance of news content comments and the ability to share news content critically based on digital safety by safely evaluating information before sharing it.

Adolescents are bombarded during most of their waking hours by images on various screens: computer, television, and film. As so-called digital natives, they are aware that these images are manufactured and manipulated to elicit certain responses. But while they acknowledge the artificiality of those images, they allow the same mediated messages virtually unfettered access to their hearts and minds with sad or even chilling results. Catholic educators and pastoral workers are charged with helping young people navigate the terrain created by popular media for at least two reasons: to nurture a more sophisticated approach to reading media, and to leverage Catholicism’s long history of employing art to illuminate aspects of God and the transcendent. The endeavor described in this article posits that the Great Commandment (Matthew 12:28-31), to love God and love one’s neighbor as oneself, provides an intellectual and pastoral framework for using recent popular films to sharpen media literacy skills on the one hand and to cultivate a sacramental imagination on the other, using tools that are portable to multiple disciplines and to most new films.

Within the extensive literature on the role of educational media in children's learning and the factors influencing that learning, the possible impact of media literacy remains unexamined. The present study examines the influence of media literacy on learning from television and hypermedia environments. In a sample of 150 children with a mean age of 5.33, a computer-based test was used to assess media literacy, and recognition and inference questions were used to measure learning. The influence of intelligence, media usage, and socioeconomic status as independent variables was also assessed. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that media literacy was a significant predictor of learning from media, even when controlling for other relevant factors such as intelligence.

The increasing development of new multimedia materials as supporting vehicles of film languages has raised some global literacy questions and problems within teacher training. These new literacy problems pose a specific curricu- lar question: How shall different media, social and cultural contexts approach the specific training of teachers (and, in fact, media makers) in order to address those global problems of a common film language with the corresponding civic and curricular appropriations? The UNESCO MIL Curriculum for Teachers places media and information literacy at the core of lifelong learning for the acquisition of necessary civic competences within a universal perspective. A review of some European case studies helps us to understand some of the most contemporary interrelations between the predominant multimedia messages and their communication channels and social networks, taking account of the preservation of the collective memory of sounds and images as a form of cultural heritage connected to the audiovisual cultures of the world at large, since these processes never occur in geographical or cultural isolation. The aim of this article is to present the context of a possible inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural approach to a global film literacy process, taking some interesting European case studies that appeared in «Comunicar, 35» as a starting point.

Photography and visual language, despite their importance and ubiquity in the aftermath of digitization, do not seem to have been given a prominent position in school curricula or in teacher training. Their integration in teaching is mainly carried out in the service of the presentation and learning of other subjects, and in teacher training, when it is not limited to technological aspects, the most that is covered is the analysis of the didactic potential of the image, its function in the teaching of other arts and sciences. Visual literacy, media education, photography as an art form, are not sufficiently addressed either in basic education or in teacher training. This chapter analyses the importance of photography in education and proposes its integration in the development of media competence of both students and teachers. If we continue to distance ourselves in the classroom from the way young people create meaning and communicate, if we limit ourselves to forbidding them to take photos and bring their mobiles to class, what kind of school image are we giving?

This article introduces a new method to support critical media literacy, learning and research in higher education. It acts as a response to an unprecedented profusion of visual information across digital media that contributes to the contemporary post-truth era, marked by fake news and uncritical consumption of the media. Whereas much has been written about the reasons behind and the character of the post-truth, less space has been dedicated to how educators could counteract the uncritical consumption of images from the perspective of semiotics. This article adopts a unique semiotic approach to address the stated gap. It discusses in depth the meaning making of pictures, digital photographs and material objects that photographs can embody. It does so by focusing on three aspects of a pictorial sign: (1) the materiality of its representation and representational elements, (2) its object (what the sign refers to) and (3) its descriptive interpretations. These three aspects inform the signification analysis within the proposed production-signification-consumption (PSC) method, exemplified with digital photographs. Understanding and analysing images via the PSC method draw attention to how humans create, interpret, (re)use, consume and respond to online and offline communication signs. The method can contribute to the development of critical media literacy as an engagement with postdigital semiotics, much needed in an age of global ecological and social crises, uncertainty and fast consumption of digital content.

We are living in social massification processes that oppress our identity and specificity as a human group; however, there are tools increasingly present among researchers, educators and other professionals who help to develop interpretations and create knowledge by developing a participatory communication perspective. This article discusses how communication and learning through dialogue and creative practice can be fostered with social interaction and dialogic processes generated through participatory photography workshops, in order to contribute to media literacy. Similar to other creative experiences of this kind, this is not only a space to share products, jobs, tips and techniques, but also one for social interaction and communication. Educators in the field of media literacy can find, unprecedented challenges and opportunities in these initiatives to take advantage of the body of knowledge of adolescents and promote learning.

With the emergence of artificial intelligence, deepfakes have rendered it possible to manipulate anyone’s and anything’s audio-visual representation, adding fuel to the discussion about the believability of what we hear and see in the news. However, we do not know yet whether deepfakes can actually impact (1) the credibility attributed to audio-visual media in general, as well as (2) the perceived self-efficacy to discern between real and fake media. Furthermore, it remains unclear if different deepfake formats can affect citizens to differing degrees. This study employs a 3 × 2 × 2 between-within-subjects experiment (N = 951) with the between-subjects factor format (audio vs. video vs. 360°-video) and facticity (real vs. fake) and the within-subjects factor reveal (pre vs. post-reveal). We explore what happens after revealing to a sample of German participants that they have been deceived by a deepfake. Our findings show that credibility of media drops across all formats after revealing the stimulus was fake, whereas the control group is not affected. On the other hand, self-efficacy is impacted even for people who were exposed to authentic news media. This shows that deepfakes may have far-reaching societal implications that go beyond deception, whereas modality seems to matter little for such effects.

Photographic icons provide broad audiences with a stable resource for public discourse and a sense of continuity. However, changes to our media landscape, most notably those introduced by digital photography and social media, are eroding the stabilising function of icons and the sense of continuity they provide viewers. In this article, my objective is to retheorise iconicity and the icon to account for these changes. To do so, I focus on the news, which has been the source of most iconic photos. I argue that we need to rethink how icons work in the news in two fundamental ways. First, with regard to individual news photos, I argue that iconicity is best understood as a spectrum, reflecting a degree of adherence to a visual blueprint shared by icons, not, as it is usually understood, as a category established through the inclusion of certain photos and the exclusion of others. Second, I argue that news photography as a whole can be thought of as an icon because it shares a common visual structure.

Exploration and exploitation in strategic decision-making entail decisions about whether and where to search for new alternatives to improve the status quo. Prior research has not explored how decisions about whether to continue search (vs. stop search or satisfice) and where to search (near vs. far) are interrelated. We report laboratory experiment results on how individuals decide whether and where to search in a complex, combinatorial task. We find that different feedback variables influence the decision to stop search from decisions regarding how broadly to search. Our results suggest that not accounting for the decision to continue (or stop) searching, separately from breadth of search, can lead to incorrect predictions regarding how feedback influences search behavior.

Although access to Internet health information can be beneficial, solving complex health-related problems online is challenging for many individuals. In this study, we investigated the performance of a sample of 60 adults ages 18 to 85 years in using the Internet to resolve a relatively complex health information problem. The impact of age, Internet experience, and cognitive abilities on measures of search time, amount of search, and search accuracy was examined, and a model of Internet information seeking was developed to guide the characterization of participants’ search strategies. Internet experience was found to have no impact on performance measures. Older participants exhibited longer search times and lower amounts of search but similar search accuracy performance as their younger counterparts. Overall, greater search accuracy was related to an increased amount of search but not to increased search duration and was primarily attributable to higher cognitive abilities, such as processing speed, reasoning ability, and executive function. There was a tendency for those who were younger, had greater Internet experience, and had higher cognitive abilities to use a bottom-up (i.e., analytic) search strategy, although use of a top-down (i.e., browsing) strategy was not necessarily unsuccessful. Implications of the findings for future studies and design interventions are discussed.

This study explores tactics to control fake news using digital identity verification. This is a conceptual and analytical study, based on a system design approach. The study finds that the absence of proper Identity Verification allows Fake Accounts and Malicious Actors to spread misinformation easily all over social media. Also, the implementation of Secure Authentication Systems and Verified Digital Identities can improve Information Credibility. It concludes that strong identity-based frameworks are an essential factor to limit Disinformation Spread.