Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

In the post-truth era we are constantly bombarded with “news” which is fabricated, distorted, and massaged information, published with the intention to deceive and mislead others. Such “news” has come to be known as “fake news”. The influence of fake news can have profound socio-political and cultural effects when translated into action. The ability to distinguish between real facts, fabricated stories, rumours, propaganda, or opinions is of paramount importance. The rapid proliferation of information through social media is now the norm. In this paper we consider the challenge of preparing students, in developing skills for recognising mis-information, dis-information and mal-information. We argue that critical thinking for evaluating information should now be considered a basic literacy, equally important to literacy itself, as well as information and information technology literacies. In this paper we revisit Bloom‟s taxonomy of cognitive skills and represent what a learner can achieve at each level. We customise the traditional moral and ethical concepts suggested by the US Content Subcommittee of the ImpactCS Steering Committee to flag the ethical concerns over mis-information, dis-information and mal-information. We report on current levels of awareness and practices at the authors‟ five higher education institutions, and reveal varying levels of awareness of the significance of critical literacy and different practices in each location. The paper concludes with an outline of future work.

The general public, the main target of disinformation campaigns, is proving to be vulnerable facing the rapid transformation and refinement of the different tools and procedures of online communication that are set in motion to generate chaos and confusion (Centro Criptológico Nacional, 2021). From the survey carried out by the consultancy Ipsos Global Advisor, it can be deduced that Spain is the European country with the most naïve attitude towards disinformation. 57% of Spaniards admit that at some time they have believed that the information in a false news item was true (IPSOS, 2018). In this context, the population is also affected by the psychological effects of astroturfing. The term astroturfing can be defined as a communication strategy that uses websites or bots to create the false impression that a certain opinion enjoys wide public support (McNutt & Boland, 2007, p. 169). Antunes, Lopes and Sanches (2021) conclude that while knowledge can give rise news stories, news stories do not necessarily give rise to knowledge, and that news stories do not necessarily proceed further than the level of opinion.

The COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by the spurt of misinformation, which was termed as ‘infodemic’ and ‘disinfodemic’, swaying the health decisions of the populace. There was the binge of bizarre information which putatively intensified the coronavirus and consequent fatalities due to relying on false information. The overview provides essence of infodemic during COVID-19 situation, mainly actuated through social media platforms. The absence of au courant media and information literacy skills amongst masses as they were unable to extricate the trustworthy information from the substantial available information they were accessing on their gadgets, underpins the need for immediate action to curtail any further infodemic. Literature accessed from the Internet was documented, analyzed, and compiled. The splurge of misinformation during COVID-19 pandemic, bizarre instances of infodemic, efforts of social media platforms to curb it, need for strengthening media and information literacy of folks and role of libraries and educational institutions in accomplishing this have been discussed. The prevalent milieu necessitates the need for empowering folks with media and information literacy skills for developing critical thinking skills amongst them for managing any future outflow of misinformation.

Fake news’, radicalisation, disinformation, hate speech… These phenomena have caught politicians and public opinion off guard and have led to democratic ‘accidents‘, such as the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack (2015) and the Cambridge Analytica scandal (2018), that called into question the role of the Internet and social media in democratic societies, as lives had been taken violently and elections had been tampered with. The dominant paradigm up until then had been the vision of the ‘Information Society‘, which had its inception with the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) that lasted from 2003 to 2005 with yearly meetings in the UN in Geneva. In the wake of a new international framework towards building ‘Knowledge Societies’ – as defined by UNESCO and civil society actors during and after WSIS – worldwide initiatives were taken, such as the Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning (2005), the Paris Agenda for Media Education (2007) and the Fez Declaration on Media and Information Literacy (2011), that promoted MIL for the first time.

Information disorder in the post-truth digital environment poses urgent challenges to epistemic agency and democratic discourse, demanding theoretically robust frameworks for Media and Information Literacy (MIL). A critical systematic review of 127 peer-reviewed studies indexed in Scopus and Web of Science (2018–2024) was conducted, complemented by meta-theoretical analysis. The theoretical framework integrates social constructivism, cultural capital theory, cultural hegemony, critical discourse analysis, inoculation theory, dual-process theory, and participatory culture paradigms, tracing MIL across three paradigmatic formations: the protectionist, critical empowerment, and liberatory praxis models. MIL constitutes a multidimensional epistemic-praxeological system in which epistemological vigilance, critical metacognitive awareness, and hermeneutic competence are essential cognitive tools for confronting the structural-discursive complexities of information disorder within digital capitalism. Prevailing MIL frameworks inadequately address the political-economic conditions sustaining information disorder. A radical integrative model is proposed, structured around five interlocking pillars spanning epistemological, cognitive, socio-cultural, political-economic, and transformative praxis dimensions, offering a theoretically grounded architecture for MIL intervention in contemporary information ecosystems.

Nowadays, one of the most important questions in teaching and learning involves increasing the degree of students’ engagement in learning. According to Astin’s Theory of Student engagement, the best learning environment is one in which it is possible to increase students’ engagement. The current study investigates the influences that using these networks for educational purposes may have on learners’ engagement, motivation, and learning.

The following is excerpted from a white paper produced for the Catherine and John MacArthur Foundation as part of their launch of a new initiative on Youth and Digital Learning. The full report can be read at http://www.projectnml.org. In this first part, we establish how the opportunities and risks posed by the new participatory culture force us to reassess media education for the 21st century. In the second installment, we will identify a framework of social skills and cultural competencies that we feel should be the foundations for this new media literacy education.

In this paper we articulate an alternative approach to look at video games and learning to become a creator and contributor in the digital culture. Previous discussions have focused mostly on playing games and learning. Here, we discuss game making approaches and their benefits for illuminating game preferences and learning both software design and other academic content. We report on an ongoing ethnographic study that documents youth producing video games in a community design studio. We illustrate how video game making can provide a context for addressing issues of participation, transparency and ethics.

This article introduces an emerging form of participatory culture, one that is not a modification or elaboration of a primary producer's content. Instead, this article details how the artifacts created to `play' a primary producer's content have become the primary work for massive global audiences. This phenomenon is observed in the genre of alternate reality games (ARGs) and is illustrated through a theory of `tiering'. Tiers provide separate content to different audiences. ARG designers tier their projects, targeting different players with different content. ARG player-production then creates another tier for non-playing audiences. To explicate this point, the features that provoke player-production — producer-tiering, ARG aesthetics and transmedia fragmentation — are interrogated, alongside the character of the subsequent player-production. Finally, I explore the aspects of the player-created tiers that attract massive audiences, and then posit what these observations may indicate about contemporary art forms and society in general.

Digital technology users are growingly involved in what has been described as convergence culture or participatory cultures. In this context, a major role is played by user-generated content. This article focuses on the participatory practices related to Little Big Planet (LBP) 1, a PlayStation platform video game that encourages users to create and share their own gaming levels. Our theoretical framework refers both to convergence culture and to a specific perspective of game studies that focuses on the cultural and social dimensions that are to be found in gaming and modding practices. A total of 8,829 Italian PlayStation Network (PSN) users were surveyed regarding their gaming practices, their attitude toward digital technology, and their LBP usage experiences. The results show that familiarity with digital technology and a socially oriented attitude to digital technology are clearly related to “active LBP engagement.” Moreover, PSN users are more likely than other digital platforms users to create their own content.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (EU-GDPR) has initiated a paradigm shift in data protection toward greater choice and sovereignty for individuals and more accountability for organizations. Its strict rules have inspired data protection regulations in other parts of the world. However, many organizations are facing difficulty complying with the EU-GDPR: these new types of data protection regulations cannot be addressed by an adaptation of contractual frameworks, but require a fundamental reconceptualization of how companies store and process personal data on an enterprise-wide level. In this paper, we introduce the resource-based view as a theoretical lens to explain the lengthy trajectories towards compliance and argue that these regulations require companies to build dedicated, enterprise-wide data management capabilities. Following a design science research approach, we propose a theoretically and empirically grounded capability model for the EU-GDPR that integrates the interpretation of legal texts, findings from EU-GDPR-related publications, and practical insights from focus groups with experts from 22 companies and four EU-GDPR projects. Our study advances interdisciplinary research at the intersection between IS and law: First, the proposed capability model adds to the regulatory compliance management literature by connecting abstract compliance requirements to three groups of capabilities and the resources required for their implementation, and second, it provides an enterprise-wide perspective that integrates and extends the fragmented body of research on EU-GDPR. Practitioners may use the capability model to assess their current status and set up systematic approaches toward compliance with an increasing number of data protection regulations.

This article critically examines fundamental aspects of the recently reformed European regime for protection of personal data, focusing on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted by the European Union (EU) in 2016. Although the GDPR is now a central concern for many organizations across multiple sectors, many complain that it is arcane, confusing, and complex. By combining knowledge from two disciplinary perspectives – from regulatory governance scholarship, on the one hand, with legal scholarship from the fields of data protection law, constitutional law, and fundamental rights, on the other hand – this article seeks to “demystify” the key elements of the regime's architecture and approach in light of the significant uncertainties concerning the nature of its requirements. In particular, this article examines the tension between the regime's pronounced “risk-based” approach to compliance and its basic objective of safeguarding fundamental rights, and the challenges facing data protection authorities in providing timely clarifications of the regime's norms.

In 2009, with the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union entered into force. Under Article 8 of the Charter, for the first time, a stand-alone fundamental right to data protection was declared. The creation of this right, standing as a distinct right to the right to privacy, is undoubtedly significant, and it is unique to the European legal order, being absent from other international human rights instruments. This commentary examines the parameters of this new right to data protection, asking what are the principles underpinning the right. It argues that the right reflects some key values inherent in the European legal order, namely: privacy, transparency, autonomy and nondiscrimination. It also analyses some of the challenges in implementing this right in an era of ubiquitous veillance practices and Big Data.

The World Bank estimates that over one billion people currently lack official identity documents. To tackle this crucial issue, the United Nations included the aim to provide legal identity for all by 2030 among the Sustainable Development Goals. Technology can be a powerful tool to reach this target. In the digital age, new technologies increasingly mediate identity verification and identification of individuals. Currently, State-led and public–private initiatives use technology to provide official identification, to control and secure external borders, and to distribute humanitarian aid to populations in need. All of these initiatives have profound implications for the protection of human rights of those affected by them. Digital identity technologies may render individuals without legal documentation more visible and therefore less vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. However, they also present risks for the protection of individuals' human rights. As they build on personal data for identification and identity verification, data protection and privacy rights are most clearly affected. The prohibition of discrimination in the digital space is also of concern as these technological advances' societal impact is not yet fully understood. Accordingly, the article argues that emerging digital identity platforms will only contribute to the protection of human rights if the providers adequately mitigate any risks of potential discrimination and promote high standards of privacy and data protection.

This Review provides an overview of the comparative review of data privacy laws and compliance, focusing on the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) and data protection regulations in the United States. The analysis explores key similarities and differences, emphasizing their implications for businesses and individuals. The EU GDPR, implemented in 2018, stands as a landmark regulation governing data protection and privacy for individuals within the European Union and the European Economic Area. In contrast, the United States lacks a comprehensive federal data privacy law. Instead, it relies on a patchwork of sectorspecific laws and state regulations, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

In the past two decades, the unprecedented incursion of technology into the economic and socio-cultural activities in Nigeria increasingly posed many unanswered questions on data protection and privacy. Consequently, this led to the country’s numerous attempts to enact a principal data protection legislation in addition to the existing sectoral laws on the subject.

The COVID-19 pandemic leads governments around the world to resort to tracking technology and other data-driven tools in order to monitor and curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Such large-scale incursion into privacy and data protection is unthinkable during times of normalcy. However, in times of a pandemic the use of location data provided by telecom operators and/or technology companies becomes a viable option. Importantly, legal regulations hardly protect people’s privacy against governmental and corporate misuse. Established privacy regimes are focused on individual consent, and most human rights treaties know derogations from privacy and data protection norms for states of emergency. This leaves little safeguards nor remedies to guarantee individual and collective autonomy. However, the challenge of responsible data use during a crisis is not novel. The humanitarian sector has more than a decade of experience to offer. International organisations and humanitarian actors have developed detailed guidelines on how to use data responsibly under extreme circumstances. This article briefly addresses the legal gap of data protection and privacy during this global crisis. Then it outlines the state of the art in humanitarian practice and academia on data protection and data responsibility during crisis.

Data protection and data privacy are significant challenges in cloud computing for multinational corporations. There are no standard laws to protect data across borders. The institutional and regulatory constraints and governance differ across countries. This article explores the challenges of institutional constraints faced by cloud computing service providers in regard to data privacy issues across borders. Through a qualitative case study methodology, this research compares the institutional structure of a few host countries, with regard to data privacy in cloud computing and delineates a relative case study. This article will also review the cloud computing legal frameworks and the history of cloud computing to make the concept more comprehensible to a layman.

This article investigates the changes in the use of traditional and new media by different technology generations. Focusing on the changes in the use of Email, Chat and Social Network Sites by older people, it explores the process by which new media become ‘old’ and reach a saturation point. Collected survey data suggest differences in media use between the three technology generations distinguished in this study: the ‘mechanical’ generation (born in 1938 or before), the ‘household revolution’ generation (born between 1939 and 1948), and the ‘technology spread’ generation (born between 1949 and 1963). This longitudinal and transnational study provides evidence of media saturation, showing that an increase in both the availability of and access to media does not lead to an increase in use, even in older adults who are behind in the adoption of the new media. Finally, the article discusses the findings, arguing for an interplay between individual and structural lag in later life.

new media

The so-called new media technologies - often referred to as Web 2.0 - encompass a wide variety of web-related communication technologies, such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds and other social media forms. First, we present several views or perspectives that may be used to answer the question, what is new media? Then we examine and review five critical characteristics of the new media technolgies - the Five C's: communication, collaboration, community, creativity, and convergence. Finally, we look at some of the uses and applications of new media in a selection of disciplines. This overview provides a much needed framework for scholars and educators who wish to learn from and contribute to this field of study.

As we move into a more digitized society, the collection and use of data continues to increase. This influx in data, partnered with challenges complying with data protection and privacy regulations and the absence of a comprehensive global data protection and privacy strategy, has contributed to data breaches and data misusage. In order to reduce these incidents, updates must be made to existing regulations and included in future regulations. A global agency should also be created to identify the main data protection and privacy objectives to develop a comprehensive strategy and oversee data protection and privacy. Our paper presents an overview of existing data protection and privacy regulations, the challenges of complying with the regulations, and recommendations to achieve long-term data protect and privacy.

The recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica and the breach that allowed the harvesting of the personal information of some 87 million Facebook users (at latest count) has pushed privacy protection to the front pages, and focussed attention on “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff, 2017) and on the capture of personal data as the central resource for the “platform economy”. As Facebook reels from the scandal, and rushes to rebuild consumer confidence, it has also pledged to apply the standards contained in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to its global operations, if not all of them and if not immediately (Constine, 2018). At no time in the past 40 years, has the protection of privacy been so prominently, globally and intensively debated. How did it get to this point?

Personalised medicine can improve both public and individual health by providing targeted preventative and therapeutic healthcare. However, patient health data must be shared between institutions and across jurisdictions for the benefits of personalised medicine to be realised. Whilst data protection, privacy, and research ethics laws protect patient confidentiality and safety they also may impede multisite research, particularly across jurisdictions. Accordingly, we compare the concept of data accessibility in data protection and research ethics laws across seven jurisdictions. These jurisdictions include Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom (which have implemented the General Data Protection Regulation), the United States, Canada, and Australia. Our paper identifies the requirements for consent, the standards for anonymisation or pseudonymisation, and adequacy of protection between jurisdictions as barriers for sharing.

Wine tourism has become an exciting avenue of development for rural wine-producing regions. The channels through which these millenary traditions are transmitted are diverse, and the wineries that practice heroic viticulture can sustainably influence the economic recovery process, especially after the COVID-19 crisis. This paper analyzes the possibilities offered by social media to promote rural territory and wine production in a sustainable way through wine tourism. For this purpose, we have used the case study of the wineries of the Ribeira Sacra appellation of origin and the Canary Islands context in the Lanzarote AO. The methodology used has counted, on the one hand, the existence of web pages of the geographical demarcations mentioned. On the other hand, a study of these wineries’ presence on the three main social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, has been carried out. The main focus has been on a content analysis of the social network Instagram, taking into account the terroir’s emotional values and tourist attractions. The results show that their presence on the Internet could be higher, as only 55% of the wineries of these appellations of origin have a website. In the case of Instagram, the percentages decrease in Ribeira Sacra and increase in Lanzarote. Finally, it has been possible to trace a model of rural development supported by sustainable tourism, wherein emotional values and transmitted attractions stand out, alongside elements related to the landscape and nature and the wine landscape, tradition and gastronomy.