Item
From Access to Agency: Media Literacy and Digital Inclusion as Pathways to Empowerment in India
- Author
- Tanveer Ahmad Lone, and Sadiya Hamid Naja
- Year
- 2025
- Publisher
- INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD
- DOI/Link
- DOIs:10.2015/IJIRMF/202508036
- Abstract
-
The present study attempts to examine the intersection of media literacy, digital inclusion, and women’s empowerment in India. It tries to understand how media literacy contributes to strengthening women’s agency and participation in social, economic, and political domains. In the present scenario, digital technologies play a vital role in shaping access to information, opportunities, and avenues for expression. Consequently, women’s capacity to navigate digital spaces safely and effectively has emerged as a crucial factor of their empowerment. This study explore the role of digital inclusion as a transformative tool that enables women to access information, opportunities, and platforms for self-expression and collective action. The study reveals that media literacy is a compulsory prerequisite for women’s empowerment and highlights the persistent challenges
that hinder women’s digital participation, such as online harassment, misinformation, structural inequalities, and the gendered digital divide which disproportionately affect women to limit their potential for empowerment. Further the findings of the study emphasises that achieve gender equality, social justice, and inclusive development requires the implementation of targeted interventions which strengthen women’s digital competencies, expand women-led digital initiatives, and ensure the creation of safe and inclusive online environments across India. The study recommends that government, non-governmental organizations, and educational institutions should prioritise the promotion of media literacy and digital inclusion to bridge the gendered digital divide and to advance the broader goals of gender equality, social justice, and inclusive development.