Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

Interest in news literacy inside and outside the academy has grown alongside related concerns about the quality of news and information available. Attempts to fully define, explicate, and operationalize news literacy, however, are scattered. Drawing on literature across journalism and mass communication, we propose a definition of news literacy that combines knowledge of news production, distribution and consumption with skills that help audiences assert control over their relationship with news. We propose that knowledge and skills should be conceptualized across five domains: context, creation, content, circulation and consumption. This explication offers a clear, concise and cohesive path for research about news literacy, especially empirical testing to evaluate news literacy and its effectiveness in contributing to relevant behaviours.

Media literacy is one of the most important twenty-first century skills considering the role of the rapidly developing information and communication technologies and media in individuals’ lives. To have people get prepared for requirements of the new century, it is needed to provide media literacy education for them at elementary, secondary and tertiary levels. Attempts to provide this education have been in progress around the world for a long time though these efforts have recently started in Turkey. One significant aspect of media literacy education is that it should focus on students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills as they are also accepted as among the twenty first century skills. To this end, learning and teaching experiences of media literacy education should rest on these skills. Problem based learning can serve for this purpose. This chapter provides insights as to how problem-based learning activities can be used in media literacy education. Therefore, a body of knowledge on media literacy and problem based learning is provided which is followed by ways to integrate problem based learning into media literacy education.

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.

The advent of social media has led to the emergence of new forms of community building, information sharing, and participation; however, not all parts of the Global South have responded to these opportunities in the same way. Slum dwellers and other economically and socially marginalized groups in Bangladesh are increasingly using social media, yet little is known about their level of social media literacy, which is essential for safe and meaningful engagement on these platforms. This study examines the social media literacy of Dhaka's slum inhabitants through three focus groups and twenty-four in-depth interviews with young men and women from two major urban slums, aged 18 to 35, using purposive sampling. Thematic analysis, framed by Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital and the sociology of digital inequality (Braun & Clarke, 2006), revealed that critical aspects such as misinformation, privacy, and online risks are often overlooked, while participants’ literacy remains largely functional-limited to basic navigation and messaging despite frequent mobile social media use. Four themes emerged: the use of social media for entertainment and connection; ignorance of underlying digital risks; informal learning related to digital platforms; and a desire for self-empowerment constrained by poverty, gender, and education. Overall, slum dwellers’ social media use and literacy reflect profound social inequalities, and from a sociological perspective, these findings suggest that, without structural change, digital technologies are more likely to amplify rather than mitigate social marginalization.

Social media is an important tool for people to interact and communicate. It is widely used in project-based learning (PjBL) and is of great significance in promoting sustainable education. However, although research on the relationship between social media and PjBL has been conducted for many years, no relevant research has been found to summarize their relationship. This study aims to explore the background, impact and challenges of using social media for PjBL learning. This study adopts a structured systematic review process, through detailed searches of WOS, Scopus, EBSCO and ERIC, and selects research samples according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 23 studies that meet the criteria were included in this review. The results analyzed the impact of social media on PjBL and its influencing factors, revealing that social media effectively supports PjBL by facilitating real-time collaboration, resource sharing, and reflective discussions, thereby enriching the PjBL experience. Students reported increased motivation, improved teamwork, and enhanced digital literacy. However, challenges such as distraction, uneven participation, and privacy concerns were noted, highlighting the need for careful planning and clear guidelines. The study concludes that when strategically integrated, social media can be a powerful enabler of student-centered learning in PjBL and provide important support for sustainable education.

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) education can combat online misinformation by enhancing users’ fact-checking skills. This action research study designed and implemented a problem-based learning MIL project for journalism undergraduates. The objectives are (a) to design a MIL project by using a problem-based learning methodology; (b) to implement the MIL project and to assess its effectiveness in improving students’ fact-checking skills; and (c) to identify the challenges and limitations of implementing the project. Analysis shows that the MIL project successfully improved students’ MIL skills, including critical analysis, media production, and personal growth. Despite facing challenges like time constraint and limited generalizability, the study suggests that the MIL project could be replicated in other journalism programs to enhance MIL skills and cultivate critical thinking to fight misinformation.

Focus groups with teenagers (ages 15–18) were conducted to understand how they define news; what motivates them to consume news; what news sources they use; and how much knowledge about the news media industry, content, and effects they bring to the task of consuming and thinking critically about the news. Findings suggested exposure to news came largely incidentally via social media and/or parents; participants expressed the sense that news would find them. These teens saw news as depressing, conflict-ridden, and something that, although important, was of less value to them than to adults. Considered in light of a media literacy model adapted for news, these focus group participants exhibited a basic sense of news literacy but lacked the kind of knowledge about news industries, content, and effects that could better direct their own exposure, understanding, and subsequent civic engagement.

Cyber troops are government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media. In this working paper, we report on specific organizations created, often with public money, to help define and manage what is in the best interest of the public. We compare such organizations across 28 countries, and inventory them according to the kinds of messages, valences and communication strategies used. We catalogue their organizational forms and evaluate their capacities in terms of budgets and staffing. This working paper summarizes the findings of the first comprehensive inventory of the major organizations behind social media manipulation. We find that cyber troops are a pervasive and global phenomenon. Many different countries employ significant numbers of people and resources to manage and manipulate public opinion online, sometimes targeting domestic audiences and sometimes targeting foreign publics. ·The earliest reports of organized social media manipulation emerged in 2010, and by 2017 there are details on such organizations in 28 countries. ·Looking across the 28 countries, every authoritarian regime has social media campaigns targeting their own populations, while only a few of them target foreign publics. In contrast, almost every democracy in this sample has organized social media campaigns that target foreign publics, while political-party-supported campaigns target domestic voters. ·Authoritarian regimes are not the only or even the best at organized social media manipulation. The earliest reports of government involvement in nudging public opinion involve democracies, and new innovations in political communication technologies often come from political parties and arise during high-profile elections. ·Over time, the primary mode for organizing cyber troops has gone from involving military units that experiment with manipulating public opinion over social media networks to strategic communication firms that take contracts from governments for social media campaigns.

In the context of global sustainability agendas and the rapid transformation of the media industry, cultivating new media professionals equipped with language proficiency, cross-cultural communication skills, and sustainability awareness has become a crucial educational imperative. This study implemented a pedagogical framework integrating Content-Based Instruction (CBI) and Project-Based Learning (PBL) at Communication University of Shanxi, centering on authentic media projects. A mixed-methods approach (questionnaires, N = 204; semi-structured interviews, n = 50) was employed to evaluate its effectiveness. Under this model, students demonstrated positive gains in linguistic knowledge and skills, media literacy, self-directed learning, critical thinking, and teamwork. Positive outcomes were also observed in intercultural competence and innovative thinking. Comparative analysis of pre- and post-test academic performance indicated significant improvement across all participating majors. The integrated CBI-PBL model provides a promising teaching pathway for sustainability-oriented foreign language education within similar instructional contexts. It contributes to achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) and offers theoretical and practical insights for aligning media education with the evolving sustainable demands of the industry

Social media have been extensively praised for increasing democratic discussion on social issues related to policy and politics. However, what happens when this powerful communication tools are exploited to manipulate online discussion, to change the public perception of political entities, or even to try affecting the outcome of political elections? In this study we investigated how the presence of social media bots, algorithmically driven entities that on the surface appear as legitimate users, affect political discussion around the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. By leveraging state-of-the-art social bot detection algorithms, we uncovered a large fraction of user population that may not be human, accounting for a significant portion of generated content (about one-fifth of the entire conversation). We inferred political partisanships from hashtag adoption, for both humans and bots, and studied spatio-temporal communication, political support dynamics, and influence mechanisms by discovering the level of network embeddedness of the bots. Our findings suggest that the presence of social media bots can indeed negatively affect democratic political discussion rather than improving it, which in turn can potentially alter public opinion and endanger the integrity of the Presidential election.

Early adolescents’ insufficient critical engagement with (online) news demands increased application of news literacy, but it remains unclear which factors increase news literacy application. To provide more insights, this survey study develops and tests a model of news literacy application in early adolescents (12‒15 y/o, N = 492). The more comprehensive model looks at the relationship between the application of news literacy and news consumption, knowledge of news media production, news literacy skills, value for (news) media literacy, news literacy and news consumption motivation, social norms, and demographics. Most importantly, the model shows the interconnectedness of news literacy application and news consumption. Furthermore, it shows the importance of early adolescents’ value for (news) media literacy, skills, and motivation to increase their news literacy application, and the lesser importance of news production knowledge. To stimulate the application of news literacy in early adolescents, researchers and practitioners could take a stepwise approach: (1) stimulate intrinsic news consumption motivation and, with that, news consumption, and then (2) build value for (news) media literacy, skills, and peer social norms to stimulate the application of news literacy. In precisely targeting these factors of news literacy application, interventions can empower early adolescents to become more critical news consumers.

To function as well-informed citizens in democracy, early adolescents (12–16 years old) should become news literate news consumers. In this time of fragmented media use and evolving conceptions of (the importance and relevance of) news, this is not easy. Therefore, this focus group study investigated news consumption and news literacy through the eyes of early adolescents. Results showed that early adolescents have definitions of news. Their news consumption is predominantly passive, possibly due to a lack of intrinsic motivation. They see news as important, but often as boring, repetitive and negative, and disconnected from youth. Participants had knowledge of news content and effects, and stressed the importance of reliable news. However, for the majority, this did not translate into critical evaluation of news. For early adolescents, the key factor in becoming more news literate news consumers is motivation. Moving forward, motivation should be better incorporated in both research and practice.

The spread of fake content in the digital environment requires not only technological solutions, but also the formation of sustainable user skills — digital literacy and critical thinking. This article examines the role of these factors in combating disinformation and analyses educational and social strategies for developing media literacy. It presents the results of research in the field of information perception and resistance to manipulation. Emphasis is placed on the synergy between technical and cognitive methods of protecting users from fake content. The aim of this article is to define the importance of digital literacy and critical thinking as key factors in reducing the impact of disinformation on users of digital platforms.

The wars of the 21st century are not the first media wars, and many tropes and schema have long histories, particularly propaganda and the othering of a purported enemy. What is new today is that although mass media remains a central and hegemonic source of insight and perspective, citizen journalism, social media, spreadable media, and surveillant, data-driven media have grown in significance at an exponential level, adding a layer of complexity. In this article, we focus on disparity in media coverage and make the point that media and information literacy provide a valuable set of lenses from which to view a cluster of news and social media accounts taken from the government, mainstream media, alternative media, and the DIY mediasphere of the social media. It centers on two conflicts that receive little media exposure -the Nagorno-Karabash conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the internal Anglo-Francophone conflict in Cameroon. It also offers examples of classroom activities that could be adapted and modified to most educational settings.

The dimensions that individuals apply in evaluating the trustworthiness or credibility of news media bear great theoretical and practical relevance. In previous research, however, there is no standardized scale for the measurement of trust in news media. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present the development and validation of a multidimensional scale of trust in news media. A theoretically derived model is tested on a representative sample via confirmatory factor analysis. After some modifications, the model is then validated on another independent sample. These results confirm the hypothesis that trust in news media can be considered a hierarchical factor (of second order) that consists of four lower-order factors, including trust in the selectivity of topics, trust in the selectivity of facts, trust in the accuracy of depictions, and trust in journalistic assessment. This model is the first validated scale of trust in news media in communication research.

While the quality of environmental science journalism has been the subject of much debate, a widely accepted benchmark to assess the quality of coverage of environmental topics is missing so far. Therefore, we have developed a set of defined criteria of environmental reporting. This instrument and its applicability are tested in a newly established monitoring project for the assessment of pieces on environmental issues, which refer to scientific sources and therefore can be regarded as a special field of science journalism. The quality is assessed in a kind of journalistic peer review. We describe the systematic development of criteria, which might also be a model procedure for other fields of science reporting. Furthermore, we present results from the monitoring of 50 environmental reports in German media. According to these preliminary data, the lack of context and the deficient elucidation of the evidence pose major problems in environmental reporting

This article argues that journalism scholars and practitioners worldwide should not view 2030, i.e. the year in which the UN Agenda sustainable development goals are to be fulfilled, as a symbolic date, but instead as a real deadline. Such a posture could spur discussion about what more the media could do in these remaining years to promote sustainable development, as well as concrete action. To normatively support such a process in this context, the purpose of this contribution is to suggest news value criteria tailored to manage the challenges of sustainable development. They presuppose a well-functioning relationship between the media’s business and planetary needs. The former concern how to finance journalism and attract audiences/users, while the latter concern what kind of journalism a sustainable world de facto requires. The proposed news value criteria could serve as a point of departure for the development of sustainability-oriented news, which could be jointly tested and configured by scholars and practitioners.

Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is a serious disease that, in the presence of underlying disease, causes persistent, generalized, marked coagulation activation. Early treatment based on an appropriate diagnosis is very important for improving patients’ prognosis, to which end diagnostic criteria play a key role. Several criteria have been proposed, but each has its strengths and weaknesses, and improved criteria are needed. Widespread use of coagulofibrinolytic markers has elucidated that the pathology of DIC differs greatly as a function of the underlying disease. Thus, discriminating use of DIC diagnostic criteria that take underlying diseases into account is important. DIC diagnostic criteria that are well known in Japan include the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare’s old DIC diagnostic criteria (JMHW criteria), the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis’s DIC diagnostic criteria (ISTH criteria), and the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine’s acute-stage DIC diagnostic criteria (JAAM criteria). Those criteria have their respective drawbacks: the sensitivity of the ISTH criteria is poor, the JAAM criteria cannot be applied to all underlying diseases, and the JMHW criteria have poor sensitivity in the case of infections, do not use molecular markers, and result in misdiagnosis. The Japanese Society on Thrombosis and Hemostasis’s newly proposed provisional draft DIC diagnostic criteria (new criteria) use diagnostic criteria classifications of “hematopoietic disorder type”, “infectious type”, and “basic type” based on the underlying pathology. For the hematopoietic disorder type the platelet count is omitted from the score, while for the infectious type, fibrinogen is omitted from the score. Also, points are added if the platelet count decreases with time. In the new criteria, molecular markers and antithrombin activity have been newly included, and as a countermeasure for misdiagnosis, 3 points are deducted if there is liver failure. In this paper, we discuss various problems encountered with DIC diagnosis, and we describe the new criteria together with the events that led to their creation. These new diagnostic criteria take into account the underlying diseases of wide area, and we expect that they will serve clinicians well due to the above adaptations and improvements

TV news has great potential to influence our day-to-day decisions and to cultivate our perceptions of what issues and events are important in society. Consequently, this holistic field study analyzes the sources, topics, and selection criteria that frame the perceptions viewers glean from one local station. Traditional news selection criteria were good predictors of which news story ideas would make it to the small screen, and a new criterion (affiliation) was particularly critical during the initial filtering. Crime, disaster/accident, and government/politics proved to be enduring news story topics, topping the list with business/ economy, education, and environment/ecology news stories.

On newspaper websites, journalists can observe the preferences of the audience in unprecedented detail and for low costs, based on the audience clicks (i.e. page views) for specific news articles. This article addresses whether journalists use this information to cater to audience preferences in their news selection choices. We analyzed the print and online editions of five national newspapers from the Netherlands with a mixed-method approach. Using a cross-lagged analysis covering 6 months, we found that storylines of the most-viewed articles were more likely to receive attention in subsequent reporting, which indicates that audience clicks affect news selection. However, based on interviews with editors we found that they consider the use of this information for news selection to conflict with professional norms. We elaborate on the implications of this discrepancy in the norms and behaviors of journalists, and project directions for future studies.

News Culture offers a timely examination of the forms, practices, institutions and audiences of journalism. Having highlighted a range of pressing issues confronting the global news industry today, it proceeds to provide a historical consideration of the rise of 'objective' reporting in newspaper, radio and television news. It explores the way news is produced, its textual conventions, and its negotiation by the reader, listener or viewer as part of everyday life. Stuart Allan also explores topics such as the cultural dynamics of sexism and racism as they shape news coverage, as well as the rise of online news, citizen journalism, war reporting and celebrity-driven infotainment.

The deceptively simple question “What is news?” remains pertinent even as we ponder the future ofjournalism in the digital age. This article examines news values within mainstream journalism and considers the extent to which news values may be changing since earlier landmark studies wereundertaken. Its starting point is Harcup and O’Neill’s widely cited 2001 updating of Galtung andRuge’s influential 1965 taxonomy of news values. Just as that study put Galtung and Ruge’s criteriato the test with an empirical content analysis of published news, this new study explores the extentto which Harcup and O’Neill’s revised list of news values remains relevant given the challenges (andopportunities) faced by journalism today, including the emergence of social media. A review ofrecent literature contextualises the findings of a fresh content analysis of news values within arange of UK media 15 years on from the last study. The article concludes by suggesting arevised and updated set of contemporary news values, whilst acknowledging that no taxonomycan ever explain everything

Media plays a crucial role in shaping public perception and social realities. Minority groups often face stereotypical and biased portrayals that reinforce social inequalities and prejudice. This article critically examines the patterns of media representation of minority groups in Pakistan and globally, focusing on the persistence of stereotypes, marginalization, and the consequences for social cohesion. Utilizing qualitative content analysis and survey data, this study identifies key trends in stereotyping and their effects on minority identities. Recommendations for more inclusive and responsible media practices are proposed to foster social integration and reduce discrimination.

Albeit an increase in awareness of minority problems, people from immigrant, ethno-cultural, and diverse racial groups or who are lesbian, bisexual, gay, or transgender or who are from low-income groups, do not have the same access to media like majority members of the society. In any democratic society, circumstances like this should not be marginalized because news cannot be perceived merely as commodity for lucid public discourse, but as the public construction of exact images of society. This implies that one of the central problems to address when scrutinizing the contribution of the news media in community-building is its relationship to cultural diversity. Although representation and visibility of minorities in mass media, reflects just one of several factors related with the standing of minority groups in society, its influence should not be underestimated.

Concern with the dissemination of research findings has increased in recent years, in the wake of critiques of research for failing to have an impact on policy-making and practice. The most direct way in which research findings can be disseminated to a wide audience is via the mass media. However, coverage of social and educational research in the media is very limited. Furthermore, when it is covered researchers often complain that their work has been distorted. This article examines some of the media coverage of an Office for Standards in Education commissioned review of research on the education of ethnic minority children, published in 1996. Analysis of this media coverage is used as a basis for addressing questions about what is involved in media representation of research, how it should be evaluated, and what meaning can be given to the concept of distortion.