Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

The study examines how visual literacy is practiced, taught, and understood in higher education. It serves as an introduction to a special issue that focuses on the role of visual literacy in university teaching and research. The article argues that visual literacy has become increasingly important because modern communication and knowledge production rely heavily on images, visual media, and multimodal forms of expression. Universities therefore need to help students develop the ability to interpret, analyze, and create visual content, not just textual information.

The study discusses the concept of digital visual literacy (DVL) and its growing importance in modern education and everyday life. Digital visual literacy refers to the ability to both understand and create visual information using digital technologies, such as images, graphics, presentations, and data visualizations produced through computers. The paper explains that DVL has become an essential skill in many areas of daily life and professional work. People need these skills to critically interpret images in news media, use digital cameras, design websites, create presentations, and visualize scientific data. Because visual communication is increasingly digital and multimedia-based, the ability to analyze and produce digital visuals is now a key component of literacy in many fields.

This book explores the concept, debates, and challenges surrounding visual literacy, particularly in the fields of art, media studies, and education. The book brings together contributions from different scholars who examine whether visual literacy can truly be considered a form of “literacy” comparable to reading and writing, and how people learn to interpret and understand visual images. The contributors discuss what it means to “read” images and whether the skills used to interpret visual material—such as paintings, photographs, diagrams, and digital images—can be systematically taught and learned.

The article discusses the growing importance of visual literacy. Felten explains that visual literacy involves the ability to understand the meaning of visual images, evaluate their credibility and persuasive techniques, and communicate ideas effectively through visual forms. The article emphasizes that images are not neutral; they carry cultural, political, and rhetorical meanings that viewers must learn to critically interpret.

The article examines how privacy concerns, trust, and privacy literacy influence the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) on the Internet. It focuses particularly on the anonymization service Tor (The Onion Router), which allows users to browse the web while protecting their identity and personal data. The study builds on the Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC) model, a framework commonly used to measure how privacy concerns affect people’s willingness to use online technologies. However, the authors argue that this model does not fully apply to privacy-enhancing technologies because these tools are specifically designed to reduce privacy risks, which changes how trust and risk perceptions influence user behavior.

The article critically examines online privacy literacy and its role in shaping how individuals understand and respond to privacy issues in the digital environment. It argues that current debates about online privacy are largely based on liberal theory, which defines privacy mainly as protection from external influences such as governments, corporations, or other individuals.

The article examines the concept of privacy literacy in the context of personalized and direct marketing, where companies increasingly collect and process consumers’ personal data to deliver targeted advertising and interactive marketing strategies. As digital marketing becomes more data-driven, concerns have grown about how businesses can use personal information without violating consumers’ privacy. The paper introduces privacy literacy as a concept that explains how consumers understand and respond to the processing of their personal data.

The article examines how privacy literacy training influences children’s understanding of online privacy and their behavior when sharing personal information on the Internet. It focuses on children aged 9–13 years, who frequently encounter requests from online services to disclose personal data but often lack awareness of the commercial value of their data and the potential privacy risks involved.

This study examined the impact of three dimensions of digital literacy on privacy-related online behaviors: (a) familiarity with technical aspects of the Internet, (b) awareness of common institutional practices, and (c) understanding of current privacy policy

The article investigates the relationship between online privacy literacy (OPL) and Internet users’ privacy concerns, particularly within the European context. Privacy literacy is defined as users’ knowledge about privacy rights, data protection regulations, and strategies for protecting personal information online.

The article examines privacy literacy on social media and how it relates to the privacy divide among different user groups. Privacy literacy refers to users’ ability to understand privacy risks, manage personal information, and apply privacy controls while using social media platforms. The study investigates whether demographic factors such as gender, ethnicity, and prior experience with privacy tools influence individuals’ level of privacy literacy.

The article discusses the growing importance of privacy literacy in the digital age, particularly the role of libraries and librarians in educating users about protecting their personal information online. Traditionally, libraries focused on safeguarding the privacy of patrons’ records, such as borrowing histories and library usage. However, with the rise of the internet and social media, privacy concerns have expanded to include the creation, sharing, and ownership of digital information.

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.

This article discusses the dominant metaphor of infodemic, the role of platforms and their policies. In understanding the spread of Covid-19 misinformation as an informational epidemic, we are led to construct the problem as one of viral spread. Virality, however, has been conceptualised as a key attribute of social media platforms. A tension therefore emerges between to encouraging good virality while limiting bad virality. To examine how platforms have dealt with this , the article analyses the policies of two platforms, Facebook and YouTube, alongside the EU Code of Practice which they have both signed. The analysis reveals that they focus on the circulation of mis/disinformation, developing an apparatus of security around it. This consists of a set of strategies, techno-material tools for the enforcement of the strategies, measures for disciplining users, and procedures for legitimating and re adjusting the whole apparatus. However, this apparatus is not fit for the purpose of addressing mis/disinformation for two reasons: firstly, its primary objective is to sustain the platforms and not to resolve the problem of mis/disinformation; secondly it obscures the question of production of mis/disinformation. Ultimately, addressing mis/disinformation in a comprehensive manner requires a more thorough and critical social inquiry.

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.

From the new Facebook ‘Oversight Body’ for content moderation to the ‘Christchurch Call to eliminate terrorism and violent extremism online,’ a growing number of voluntary and non-binding informal governance initiatives have recently been proposed as attractive ways to rein in Facebook, Google, and other platform companies hosting user-generated content. Drawing on the literature on transnational corporate governance, this article reviews a number of informal arrangements governing online content on platforms in Europe, mapping them onto Abbott and Snidal’s (2009) ‘governance triangle’ model. I discuss three key dynamics shaping the success of informal governance arrangements: actor competencies, ‘legitimation politics,’ and inter-actor relationships of power and coercion. Citation & publishing information

The digital revolution has changed the landscape of development. The disruptive nature of the transformation has forced countries and societies to undertake major projects and investments. Coming to understand the underpinnings of this revolution has been, however, a slow and intricate process, particularly in developing nations. Even today, when there is no longer any doubt about ICT’s importance and impact, development policies and initiatives are not always oriented toward addressing major longterm needs.

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.