Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

This joint publication by UNODC and UNESCO highlights the transformative power of education in strengthening the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary for addressing global challenges, especially those that stem from a lack of integrity, like corruption. It provides educational activities, lesson plans and outside the classroom resources designed to empower youth to reject corrupt practices and become agents of change, promoting integrity and upholding democratic values.

These guidelines for policymakers suggest concrete ways to address anti-semitism, counter prejudice and promote tolerance through education, by designing programmes based on a human rights framework, global citizenship education, inclusiveness and gender equality.

There has been widespread concern in contemporary Western societies about declining engagement in civic life; people are less inclined to vote, to join political parties, to campaign for social causes, or to trust political processes. Young people in particular are frequently described as alienated or apathetic. Some have looked optimistically to new media—and particularly the Internet—as a means of revitalizing civic life and democracy. Governments, political parties, charities, NGOs, activists, religious and ethnic groups, and grassroots organizations have created a range of youth-oriented websites that encourage widely divergent forms of civic engagement and use varying degrees of interactivity. But are young people really apathetic and lacking in motivation? Does the Internet have the power to re-engage those disenchanted with politics and civic life? Based on a major research project funded by the European Commission, this book attempts to understand the role of the Internet in promoting young people's participation. Examples are drawn from Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom—countries offering contrasting political systems and cultural contexts. The book also addresses broader questions about the meaning of civic engagement, the nature of new forms of participation, and their implications for the future of civic life.

Media literacy has been increasingly becoming a prerequisite of full citizen participation. The latter has been shifting, especially among youth, away from the traditional media forms and more and more towards non-conventional ones. For example see the FridaysForFuture movement. The possibility for and abilities to get involved in the public debate are, though, not distributed equally. One of the tools to narrow down the ‘participation gap’ may be in media literacy education (MLE). This chapter presents a participatory action research exploring the possibilities of the MLE for the development of citizen participation of disadvantaged youth. It draws especially on the three-month intervention at the vocational school in the Czech Republic. 17 students aged 17–19 participated in the study in 2019.

The democratization of media in India has ushered in a dynamic era marked by both challenges and opportunities, particularly in the realms of political activism and youth empowerment. The primary aim of this article is to investigate the impact of media on political activism and the empowerment of youth within the Indian democratic context. It seeks to explore how various media platforms, including digital and social media, contribute to shaping political opinions and facilitating civic engagement among India’s younger population.This article delves into the multifaceted role of media in shaping India's democratic landscape, with a specific focus on its impact on political discourse, citizen engagement, and youth empowerment. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature and empirical evidence, the article explores the challenges posed by the spread of misinformation, regulatory constraints, and digital inequalities, while also highlighting the opportunities presented by citizen journalism initiatives, alternative media outlets, and social media platforms. By equipping citizens, especially the youth, with critical media literacy skills andpromoting digital citizenship, India can navigate the complexities of media democratization to foster a more inclusive, participatory, and resilient democracy. Through this analysis, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between media, politics, and youth empowerment in the context of India's evolving democratic landscape.The future of Indian democracy will significantly depend on how well the nation manages to harness the potential of media platforms to foster informed political participation while mitigating the risks associated with digital media proliferation. As this article illustrates, nurturing a resilient and inclusive democratic process is contingent upon empowering the youth with the tools to critically engage with media and actively participate in the democratic governance of their country.

Social media has transformed activism by facilitating the mobilisation of support, enabling challenges to power structures, and influencing public discourse. The #EndSARS movement in Nigeria, which protested police brutality and governance failures, demonstrated the efficacy of hashtag activism as a form of digital advocacy. This study examines the role of digital literacy in promoting engagement, mobilisation strategies, and participation in the #EndSARS protest. It specifically analyses the use ofTwitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram by digitally literate users for organising protests, disseminating real-time information, and countering misinformation. Employing qualitative content analysis of social media posts, digital campaign materials, and online discussions, this study investigates the role of digital literacy in message framing, audience engagement, and the overall sustainability of the movement. Individuals with higher digital literacy typically create mission-driven content that fosters significant engagement, using diverse media and algorithmic visibility to enhance content reach. However, the long-term success of the movement was hindered by challenges such as internet censorship, the digital divide, and state-sponsored misinformation campaigns. This research contributes to academic discussions on digital activism, online political participation, digital literacy, and social movements through its educational and community profile. It underscores the necessity of structured digital literacy curricula that enhance civic engagement and equip grassroots activists with essential digital skills.

Looking at recent examples of hashtag activism as collaborative storytelling practices and digital political communication, this article argues that sharing – in the sense of collectively held beliefs and grievances and their potential for creating narrative and social movements on social media – can be seen as operating on an educational level as well. Drawing on Ruth Page’s concept of the shared story and an analysis of the #MeToo movement, the article positions hashtag activism as a case study for sharing ideas, experiences, and skills, and the acquisition of information and media literacy. By extension, the paper provides an example of adopting an interdisciplinary approach in higher education that aims at enabling future teachers to retell, adapt, and remix stories and skills for their work in the EFL classroom.

Information literacy emerged in the 1970s to address information needs in an active and critical way. However, the increasing availability of information and the evolution of technology led information literacy to focus more on instrumental aspects and less on its cognitive, axiological, and critical dimensions. As a response, a new wave emerged to explicitly focus on the most critical and emancipatory aspects: Critical Information Literacy (CIL). This concept has been developed in a dynamic and spontaneous way through the various practices and publications on the topic and as a reflection of the social advances in recent decades. In this paper, CIL is presented as a means of action for informational activism to promote changes in society aligned with the values of human rights and social justice. We present a review of the main authors that have worked with CIL, including the active scene in Brazil and its Freirean influence, aiming at systematizing the concept and its main characteristics in a global landscape dominated by misinformation and absence of informational and digital competences. The concept of informational activism is presented and discussed as one of the main lines of action for Library and Information Science in today's polarized society.

The wide adoption of social media platforms has altered how people communicate, obtain information, and participate in society. Regarding political participation, social media has emerged as a novel venue for people to voice their opinions, connect with others who share their viewpoints, and engage in activism. As a result, knowing the effect of social media on political participation is critical, particularly in developing nations like Jordan. This research investigates the moderating effect of certain factors on the impact of social media on political involvement among Jordanian youth. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach is used to analyze data from a survey of 334 young people. The findings show that social media has a favorable and considerable impact on political participation. Gender was also discovered to have a strong moderating effect on the relationship between social media use and political participation. According to the analysis, gender positively moderates the effect of the frequency of social media use on political participation, while gender negatively moderates the effect of the purpose of social media usage on political participation. The study sheds light on the significance of social media in young people’s political participation in Jordan, emphasizing the need of taking differences in gender into account when developing effective tactics to engage young people in the political processes.

This article explores the relationship between media literacy and transmedia storytelling within contemporary convergence culture. It argues that storytelling now unfolds across multiple media platforms, requiring audiences to actively navigate, interpret, and participate in interconnected narrative environments. The authors highlight how transmedia storytelling reshapes communication by blending production and consumption practices, encouraging audience engagement and collaborative meaning-making. The study emphasizes that media literacy must expand beyond traditional reading skills to include the ability to critically analyze, evaluate, and create content across diverse media formats. Overall, the article positions transmedia storytelling as an important framework for developing participatory, critical, and multimodal literacy competencies in digital media environments.

Stories and narratives are fundamental forms of human communication that have evolved into digital experiences within today’s convergence culture. In this environment, transmedia storytelling spreads interconnected content across multiple media platforms, allowing meaning to develop through different formats. Drawing on the work of Jenkins, Scolari, and Gosciola, the article conceptually explores transmedia storytelling and its potential to foster transliteracy—the ability to navigate, interpret, and create content across diverse media. It discusses key features of transmedia narratives, examines the concept of transliteracy, and highlights their interconnected, transdisciplinary relationship in contemporary media and learning contexts.

This research is dedicated to the dominance of digital visual literacy in modern media, how it is used, and the problems associated with it. The study primarily highlights the mistakes made by journalists and media organizations in relation to visual literacy and offers solutions to these issues. The analysis shows that digital visual literacy is not just a skill, meanwhile it is a necessity in the digital age. It enables individuals to engage with the visual world of modern media in a critical, creative, and responsible manner. As technology evolves, digital visual literacy also develops and emerges in various forms. Today, as the media faces an overwhelming flow of information, it encounters more visual content than plain text. Therefore, verifying and analyzing the authenticity of this visual content has become one of the most crucial responsibilities of journalists. Otherwise, media ethics are compromised, and society receives false information. Media outlets must also know how to use the tools related to digital visual literacy, which are constantly evolving. Azerbaijani media is somewhat lagging in this area, mostly due to financial constraints. In short, this study outlines the problems and proposes solutions, while also providing examples from both local and international media cases.

This study examines the growing role of visual mis- and disinformation in contemporary digital media environments and its implications for democratic societies. The authors argue that misinformation is increasingly communicated through images, videos, memes, and other visual formats that audiences often perceive as authentic representations of reality. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, the article explains how social media platforms amplify visually manipulated content through algorithmic promotion and rapid sharing practices, making such content highly persuasive and emotionally engaging. The study highlights emerging threats posed by deepfakes and advanced visual editing technologies, which not only spread false information but also undermine public trust in journalism, institutions, and verified evidence by creating uncertainty about what is real. It further discusses the limitations of traditional fact-checking in correcting visual misinformation and emphasizes the need to expand media and information literacy to include strong visual literacy and critical evaluation skills. Overall, the article concludes that understanding and addressing visual disinformation is essential for protecting informed public discourse and democratic processes in the digital age.

While a fast-growing body of research is concerned with the detrimental consequences of disinformation for democracy, the role of visuals in this context has so far only been discussed superficially. Visuals are expected to amplify the impact of disinformation, but it is rarely specified how, and what exactly distinguishes them from text. This article is one of the first to treat visual disinformation as its own type of falsehood, arguing that it differs from textual disinformation in its production, processing and effects. We suggest that visual disinformation is determined by varying levels of modal richness and manipulative sophistication. Because manipulated visuals are processed differently on a psychological level, they have unique effects on citizens’ behaviours and attitudes.

This study investigates how Omani youth perceive the safety and transparency of social media platforms as tools for civic engagement. Using a mixed-methods approach, data were collected from a nationwide survey of 346 respondents aged 18–29 and three virtual focus group discussions containing 15 participants. Survey respondents were selected through random sampling to ensure representation across gender, region, and socio-economic background. Focus group participants were also randomly drawn from the survey pool and stratified by age to capture generational differences in perception and behavior. Findings indicate that while social media platforms are recognized as accessible and interactive spaces that facilitate awareness and civic expression, significant concerns persist regarding data privacy, misinterpretation, and online harassment. Informative content and user-generated media were found to foster accountability, while entertainment-driven posts and emotionally charged activism often led to polarization or disengagement. The paper calls for enhanced digital literacy, context-sensitive platform moderation policies, and institutional support for transparent digital civic spaces.

Social media use has redefined the production, experience and consumption of news media. These changes have made verifying and trusting news content more complicated and this has led to a number of recent flashpoints for claims and counter-claims of ‘fake news’ at critical moments during elections, natural disasters and acts of terrorism. Concerns regarding the actual and potential social impact of fake news led us to carry out the first nationally representative survey of young Australians’ news practices and experiences. Our analysis finds that while social media is one of young people’s preferred sources of news, they are not confident about spotting fake news online and many rarely or never check the source of news stories. Our findings raise important questions regarding about the need for news media literacy education – both in schools and in the home. Therefore, we consider the historical development of news media literacy education and critique the relevance of dominant frameworks and pedagogies currently in use. We find that news media has become neglected in media literacy education in Australia over the past three decades and we propose that current media literacy frameworks and pedagogies in use need to be rethought for the digital age.

The aim of this study was to advance understanding of how to foster media literacy among older people. A systematic review was conducted of 40 empirical studies published between January 2005 and April 2019. The literature review provided information and practical implications for researchers, designers, and providers of media-literacy education for older people. Based on the review, it can be concluded that interventions aimed at fostering media literacy in older people need further development and creative enrichment in terms of aims, content, providers, recipients, and pedagogical approaches.

This article presents a systematic meta-review of the scientific literature discussing the concepts of information literacy, media literacy, and digital literacy. While carrying out a cross analysis of the way in which literature reviews specifically address these three concepts, this article identifies, and articulates a critical analysis of, the main findings from the reviewed texts regarding the conceptual landscape that they cover. This work highlights confusion between the constitutive dimensions of literacies, recurrent difficulties in establishing theoretical articulations between contributions, and operationalization problems in observing and assessing these literacies. These issues are the subject of a discussion grounded in the specific field of media education.

The study examines the factors influencing K–12 teachers’ intentions to learn artificial intelligence, addressing the gap in educators’ understanding and effective use of AI in education. Based on survey data from 318 teachers across multiple regions in China and analyzed through structural equation modeling, the findings identify key determinants of AI learning intentions. Teachers’ perceptions of AI’s potential for social good and their self-efficacy in learning AI directly predict their intention to engage with AI learning. Awareness of AI ethics and overall AI literacy function as indirect influences.

The article presents an interdisciplinary framework for designing introductory AI literacy courses that move beyond the technical focus of traditional computer science curricula. Drawing on teaching experiences across general education, computer science majors, and high school settings, the authors refine a socio-technical AI literacy model adaptable to diverse learners. The proposed course design is structured around four pillars: understanding AI’s technical scope, interacting effectively with generative AI tools, applying ethical and responsible AI principles, and analyzing AI’s societal implications.

The article proposes a comprehensive framework for data and AI literacy designed to support their systematic integration into school curricula, teacher education, higher education, and lifelong learning programs. It seeks to establish a shared conceptual foundation that treats data and AI literacy as transdisciplinary competencies across three perspectives: application-oriented, technical-methodological, and socio-cultural. The framework aims to equip citizens with the skills needed to engage with data and AI consciously and ethically in a data-driven society.

This article introduces a competency-based model for generative artificial intelligence (AI) literacy covering essential skills and knowledge areas necessary to interact with generative AI. The competencies range from foundational AI literacy to prompt engineering and programming skills, including ethical and legal considerations. These 12 competencies offer a framework for individuals, policymakers, government officials, and educators looking to navigate and take advantage of the potential of generative AI responsibly. Embedding these competencies into educational programs and professional training initiatives can equip individuals to become responsible and informed users and creators of generative AI.

The manual is based on the principle of integrating the education and practice of journalism. The first part of the book is focused on explaining the basics of media and information literacy. The use of the term “media” throughout this document refers to two dimensions. Firstly, there is the news media as an institution, the “fourth estate”, having specific professional functions that its constituents pledge to fulfil in democratic societies and which are necessary for good governance and development. This includes radio, television and newspapers, whether online or offline, as well as journalistic content on the Internet. Secondly, there is media as the plural of the term “medium”, and which here refers to multiple communication modes such as broadcast and cable television, radio, newspapers, motion pictures, video games, books, magazines, certain uses of the Internet etc. MIL encompasses engagement with all these modes. For its part, UNESCO is particularly concerned with information and news, but recognise that there is other content such as entertainment, interpersonal communications, and advertising.The use of the term “Information providers” throughout this document refers to the information management, information agencies, memory, cultural and Internet information organisations. It includes libraries, archives, museums, documentation centres, information management institutions, not-for-profit and for-profit infor-mation providers, networks, and companies which provide a range of services and content online and others.

An integrative literature review was conducted according to Coopers’ guidelines in order to critique and integrate issues over the convergence among imaginative/Waldorf pedagogy, social-emotional learning and media literacy mindfulness in Primary and Secondary education. A comprehensive analysis of theoretical and empirical articles between 2005 and 2019 was provided. Three research questions were set, discussed and analysed highlighting the followinggaps in the literature: (i) the combination of imagination pedagogies with digital media and social-emotional development is neglected, (ii) there is a lack of longitudinal studies to analyse how social-emotional skills contribute to forming critical media literacy according to student’s developmental stage, (iii) there is urgent need for reconceptualizing media literacy by encompassing and analysing its effects on cognitive, social-emotional and motivational skills development. We provide a framework presenting four perspectives, theoretical, developmental, pedagogical and social, supporting the relationship among imaginative pedagogy, media literacyand social-emotional skills.

Youth turnout at European Parliamentary elections has been dwindling. This study investigates the impact of news media exposure on electoral participation of first time voters. Relying on a data set that combines content analysis of news stories about the EU (N = 769) and a multiple wave panel survey (N = 994), we analyze the impact of exposure to online and offline coverage of relevant topics on turn out across a period of 6 months. We find that exposure to news in offline media had no significant effect on participation, whereas exposure to relevant news in online media positively affected turnout.