Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

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.

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.

This study aimed to collect input for the definition of a conceptual framework of digital competence for information literacy to be developed in the context of doctoral programs in Education. A systematic literature review methodology was adopted, and several steps were developed that included: preliminary readings and initial mapping, which allowed to define the search terms and expressions; the definition of inclusion and exclusion criteria; the research in databases and aggregators; the pre-selection of articles; and the selection of the corpus of analysis, which included seven articles published in scientific journals with peer review. The studies are mainly focused on information literacy. The two concepts are addressed simultaneously in only three articles. Digital competence is related to the mastery of digital tools, namely to search for information in databases or to define alert strategies. We infer that this competence seems to be closer to more operative concepts, such as digital skills. Information literacy requires the effective use of information involving information search, selection, evaluation and communication. We conclude that it is necessary to crossreference and triangulate existing studies in order to define the digital competences for information literacy that doctoral students in Education should develop. This is the object of an ongoing doctoral project.

A conceptual analysis is undertaken of information literacy by investigating some leading definitions and delineations of the concept. These are analyzed with the intention of exploring chronological extensions in the meaning of the concept. The range of skills and knowledge required for information literacy has. expanded over the last two decades in order to accommodate the continually developing requirements for effective information handling, and the article notes how the library and information science (LIS) profession is responding to these requirements. The review concludes by identifying three main trends in information literacy which are evident from the literature of the early 1990s.

The article considers the explanation of the necessity of innovations in the processes of forming institutional forms of media education, the problem of the status of scientific knowledge caused by research of social communication. Overview of alternative practices of media education reflects the dynamics of social transformations, connected with the use of media in the field of education, art, media production and communication services.

Minors are active on social media, not only as consumers but also as content creators. This context has allowed kidfluencers—underage content creators prioritizing interacting with their communities of followers—to emerge. The present research seeks to describe and analyze the content prominent Peruvian kidfluencers generated in 2022 and 2023. To this end, the content of 500 Instagram and 500 TikTok posts was analyzed. Results show that kidfluencers base their popularity on showcasing their artistic talents and lifestyle and that their content heavily features brands. It is also relevant to reflect on the role of minors in social network environments because they are highly exposed and create even sexualized content that is not appropriate for their age.

This paper presents the results of e-MEL, a European project aiming at promoting the development, implementation and testing of training scenarios for pre- and in-service teachers’ training in the field of digital and media literacy education. The analysis of the results led the research team to identify the critical and successful aspects of the testing, and to draw some recommendations for the future implementation of teacher training interventions. The final goal is to reflect on sustainable models of media and digital skills training both in terms of teacher education and teachers’ professional development.

This study explores the representation of socio-cognitive components in Indonesian political multimodal news text using the framework of Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA). With the increasing prominence of multimedia in contemporary news production, understanding how socio-cognitive aspects are conveyed through multiple modes becomes essential. Drawing on SF-MDA, which combines systemic functional linguistics and multimodal analysis, the study examines how Indonesian political news texts incorporate social and cognitive elements to shape meaning and influence audience perceptions. This study was undertaken qualitatively involving three online news published by Indonesia’s publishers as the data. The result reveals that the visual and verbal modes merged in the news tend to highlight the good image of the political figures. It means that the meanings of visual and verbal components of the news persuasively work together to create the good impressions among readers to the human actor in the news. As the implication, multimodal resources are strategically employed to shape public opinion and promote specific political ideologies. Ultimately, this research aims to contribute to the development of critical media literacy and foster a more nuanced understanding of the socio-political dynamics in contemporary Indonesia

The aim of the conducted study is to reveal the effects of the media literacy course taken by social studies teacher candidates on solving advertising messages they come across. This study is a qualitative study in the pattern of action research. The research group of the study constitutes 48 teacher candidates who are studying in the Department of Social Studies Teaching at Van Yüzüncü Yıl University and took Media Literacy course as a selective course in the 2016-2017 academic year. In the study, the results obtained from the interviews with the students was analyzed using content analysis method. When the findings obtained in this study are evaluated in generally, it is seen that, before giving any information about the media literacy course to the students in the department of social studies teaching, students interpreted detergents, cigarettes, telephone operators, razors, burgers and cakes advertisements as they saw on the screen and without questioning such as "detergent advertisements, cake advertisements, razor advertisements, etc."; after ten weeks of training related to media literacy, the same group of students have approached the same ads text more critically and questionably and have entered into an attitude that reveals the secret information contained in the ads text.

Critical thinking in the post-truth era demands that news users develop and maintain a skeptical way of knowing, and cultivate the ability to discern evidence-based and unbiased information to make sound judgments. While adolescents are becoming the most dedicated social media news consumers, the literature is yet to catch up with empirical research on whether adolescents are able to apply critical thinking to make sense of real-life news. We investigated the relationships between social media news consumption, news media literacy, and critical thinking of 1505 adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. Multivariate analyses suggested an internal news-seeking motivation, a cautious perception towards social media personalized news algorithms, and a reported habit of news-source tracking each independently predicted skills in thinking critically about a real-life news report. Hierarchical regression analysis further indicated the unique and combined variances of news consumption and news media literacy in predicting critical thinking in news. Insights for preparing our youth to become news-literate critical thinkers are discussed.

As new technologies and information delivery systems emerge, the way in which individuals search for information to support research, teaching, and creative activities is changing. To understand different aspects of researchers’ information-seeking behavior, this article surveyed 2,063 academic researchers in natural science, engineering, and medical science from five research universities in the United States. A Web-based, in-depth questionnaire was designed to quantify researchers’ information searching, information use, and information storage behaviors. Descriptive statistics are reported.

This study investigates the impact of information technology (IT) on productivity and collaboration patterns in academe. Our data combine information on the diffusion of two noteworthy innovations in IT—BITNET and the Domain Name System (DNS)—with career-history data on research-active life scientists. We analyzed a random sample of 3,114 research-active life scientists from 314 U.S. institutions over a 25-year period and find that the availability of BITNET on a scientist’s campus has a positive effect on his or her productivity and collaborative network. Our findings also support the hypothesis of a differential effect of IT across subgroups of the scientific labor force. Women scientists and those working at nonelite institutions benefit more from the availability of IT in terms of overall research output and an increase in the number of new coauthors they work with than do men or individuals at elite institutions. These results suggest that IT is an equalizing force, providing a greater boost to productivity and more collaboration opportunities for scientists who are more marginally positioned in academe

The need to understand authors’ motivations for creating links between university web sites is addressed by a survey of a random collection of 414 such links from the ac.uk domain. A classification scheme was created and applied to this collection. Obtaining inter-classifier agreement as to the single main link creation cause was very difficult because of multiple potential motivations and the fluidity of genre on the Web. Nevertheless, it was clear that, whilst the vast majority, over 90%, was created for broadly scholarly reasons, only two were equivalent to journal citations. It is concluded that academic web link metrics will be dominated by a range of informal types of scholarly communication. Since formal communication can be extensively studied through citation analysis, this provides an exciting new window through which to investigate a facet of a previously obscured type of communication activity

This paper analyzes the impact of academic inbreeding in relation to academic research, and proposes a new conceptual framework for its analysis. We find that mobility (or lack of) at the early research career stage is decisive in influencing academic behaviors and scientific productivity. Less mobile academics have more inward oriented information exchange dynamics and lower scientific productivity.The analysis also indicates that the information exchange and scientific productivity of academics that changed institutions only once do not differ substantially from that of ‘‘mobile inbred academics’’. This emphasizes the need for mobility throughout scientific and academic careers and calls for policies to curtail academic inbreeding.

This paper examines Wikipedia’s participatory governance model as a framework for informing European digital public sphere development. Through analysis of Wikipedia’s two-decade experience with community-driven content moderation, reliable source verification, and decentralized decision-making, the study demonstrates how public-interest platforms can maintain information quality while fostering democratic participation. Drawing on Henry Jenkins’ participatory culture theory, the research shows how Wikipedia’s collaborative editing processes naturally develop users’ media literacy competencies through active engagement rather than passive consumption. The paper analyses Wikipedia’s recent regulatory experiences under the EU Digital Services Act and European Media Freedom Act, highlighting both compliance challenges and opportunities for policy learning. The findings suggest that adapting Wikipedia’s model could inform the design of a European digital public sphere that prioritizes information quality, user empowerment, and democratic discourse over commercial engagement metrics

Conceptualisations of media literacy often include the dimension of the media users’ participation in media regulation or, more general, media governance. In doing so the expectation is stressed, that beyond the ability to participate in media-related communicative practices, literacy would also mean that media users engage in forming the technical, political, and economic conditions for communication processes. However, this aspect seems to be widely neglected when it comes to empirical research on patterns and levels of media literacy. As a consequence, talking about media users as actors of media governance sounds unfamiliar and somehow strange: Media politics and media regulation are rather done for media users and their interests – or sometimes rather against their interests – but almost never by media users. This article proposes a conceptual clarification of the potential roles of the audience and discusses them with regard to concrete instruments that could help to strengthen this aspect of media literacy and thus the role of audiences in media governance.

We conducted a study of Australia’s media content regulation system in the context of three major Federal Government reviews of media law and policy (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2012; Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, 2012; Finkelstein, 2012). The current system understands governance as the work of government and industry, and either minimises or overlooks the role of users, the context of platforms, and the scope of participation. In this article, we assess the weaknesses in the current framework and look both critically and pragmatically at the role users can play in media content governance. By drawing on the Australian situation as a case study, we consider the wider problem of governance within networked media spaces and the tensions between users, algorithms, platforms, industries, and nation states. Finally, we argue for the development of stronger theoretical model of ‘civic media governance’, based on principles of radical pluralism that can better account for dissent and dissonance.

It examine the Role of Media Literacy in the Governance Reform Agenda

Amidst the dynamic evolution of digital platforms, governance mechanisms play a pivotal role in shaping their operations and impact. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on digital platform governance, offering insights into its multifaceted dimensions and contemporary research trends. Through an extensive examination of existing scholarship, this review synthesizes key findings, theoretical frameworks, and empirical methodologies employed in studying digital platform governance. Furthermore, it delineates emerging research outlooks and identifies critical gaps for future investigation. By delving into diverse aspects such as regulatory frameworks, user policies, content moderation, and platform ecosystem dynamics, this paper contributes to a nuanced understanding of digital platform governance. Ultimately, it serves as a roadmap for scholars and practitioners seeking to navigate the complex terrain of digital platform governance and chart new avenues for research and innovation.

The rapid increase in the digital platforms has altered the world economies and introduced innovation, connectivity and economic development. However this growth has also raised advanced governance problems particularly in regards to ensuring that legal and ethical standards are followed. The article is a study on the structures that should be in existence to ensure compliance in the digital platform governance. It examines the existing frameworks and proposes a common manner of establishing a balanced regulatory condition which will be founded on regulatory control, transparency procedures and stakeholder participation. This paper analyses how legal frameworks, technology infrastructure, and organizational policies can interact to promote compliance and inhibit risks related to privacy of information, bias in algorithms, market monopoly and consumer protection. The other factors of compliance that are emphasized in the study and are critical to promoting trust and equity in the digital mediums are auditability, accountability, and user empowerment. In addition, the paper will discuss how the existing technologies can be leveraged to automate the compliance processes, in order to offer real-time monitoring and resolving the issues i.e. artificial intelligence and machine learning. It also defines regulatory fragmentation, jurisdiction and dynamic nature of digital technologies as a matter of concern and provides recommendations on how to create dynamic and flexible structures. These frameworks are very important in balancing between innovation and responsible governance. The article is targeted at educating the policymakers, platform operators, and users concerning how the collaboration and continuous adaptation would enhance the efficiency of the digital platform governance and compliance.

Platform governance scholarship commonly derives the role of the state from its actions as a regulator of platforms: a rule-setter that sets limits and restricts their activities. This article argues that three additional state roles enable and constrain the agency of states to regulate platforms: facilitator, buyer, and producer. Using the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act as a case study, the article asks: How do different state roles in platform governance shape AI’s regulatory geographies? It answers this research question by outlining two policy dilemmas between those four state roles. First, the EU’s ambition to act as a facilitator of digital markets constrains its scope of interventions as a regulator of platforms. Second, the EU’s deficits in acting as a producer of AI infrastructure exacerbate its dependency as a buyer of Big Tech offerings, especially cloud computing services. The article contends that dilemmas between state roles are not anomalies but defining features of stateplatform relations. As generative AI systems gain sophistication, an understanding of how state roles relate to each other helps to navigate their complex governance regimes.

Following a host of high-profile scandals, the political influence of platform companies (the global corporations that that operate online ‘platforms’ such as Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and many other online services) is slowly being re-evaluated. Amidst growing calls to regulate these companies and make them more democratically accountable, and a host of policy interventions that are actively being pursued in Europe and beyond, a better understanding of how platform practices, policies, and affordances (in effect, how platforms govern) interact with the external political forces trying to shape those practices and policies is needed. Building on digital media and communication scholarship as well as governance literature from political science and international relations, the aim of this article is to map an interdisciplinary research agenda for platform governance, a concept intended to capture the layers of governance relationships structuring interactions between key parties in today’s platform society, including platform companies, users, advertisers, governments, and other political actors.

The United States has the world’s largest national population of Internet users, roughly 170 million people, or 70% of the adult population. However, the deep class and racial inequalities within the U.S. are mirrored in access to cyberspace. This chapter examines the nature of the U.S. digital divide, differentiating between Internet access and usage, using data from 1995 to 2005. Although Internet usage has grown among all sociodemographic groups, substantial differences by income and ethnicity persist. The chapter also examines discrepancies in access to broadband technologies.

The book examines television from a psychological perspective, focusing on how television influences human cognition, emotions, attitudes, and behavior. John Condry analyzes the relationship between television content and viewers, particularly how television affects children, learning, social behavior, and cultural perceptions.

The article explores how television parody can function as a form of media literacy education. It argues that parody, by using humor and entertainment, can help audiences understand how television works—particularly the techniques, conventions, and persuasive strategies used in media texts. The paper focuses on the animated sitcom The Simpsons, which is widely known for its satirical and parodic style. The author suggests that the show acts as an informal media educator by humorously exposing and critiquing the structures and practices of television itself. Through parody, the program highlights how television narratives, advertising strategies, and promotional messages are constructed.