Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

The purpose of this paper was to provide a theoretical outline of why critical media literacy (CML) should be included in Korean English education teaching practices and teacher training curricula. CML is a pedagogy designed to sensitize students to ideological meanings embedded in media that socialize people into specific values, beliefs, and behaviors. This paper begins with a review of theoretical foundations of CML including the symbolic nature of human consciousness signification and the processes of socialization, which are theoretically encapsulated within the dialectic among post-structural theories of discourse and representation. A review of literature on CML and its application to English as a foreign language (EFL) is then presented. Applications of CML include situated inquiry, discussion, creation of group multimodal projects suggests, how it fosters the development of critical thinking skills, the acquisition and use of new vocabulary idioms, and transforming student perceptions of themselves and their society.

This study provides an analysis of how the term “media literacy” has been defined by authors of articles published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education. It generates answers to two questions: (1) To what extent does there appear to be a shared meaning for the term “media literacy” across authors who publish articles on this topic, and (2) When authors cite definitions of media literacy, which sources do they use most often? The findings of this content analysis reveal that there are a great many definitions being used for media literacy as well as a large number of sources being cited for those definitions. This study uncovered more than 400 definitional elements, which were then organized into a six-category scheme that reflects the full span of thinking exhibited by authors of the 210 articles published in this journal.

News media literacy has come to receive considerable public attention in recent years in the context of anxieties about the impact of misinformation on society. This article outlines research that examines how Australian teachers perceive and value news media literacy and it explores their experiences of teaching news in the classroom. The article presents findings from an online survey of 295 Australian teachers and follow-up semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers. Our analysis finds that although many teachers value students’ learning about the news, there are significant challenges and barriers to address if the approach is to become more widely available in Australian classrooms. Teachers lack direction about how news should be taught to young people, the curriculum is already crowded, limiting opportunities to address news, and teachers lack access to relevant professional development. The article provides insights into how to move forward to ensure young people receive adequate education about news in Australia, with the findings holding relevance to other countries facing similar challenges.

There is a lot of information in the literature about media literacy. Since the concept of media has a different meaning for many people, there may be different opinions about this concept. Many definitions have been made about media literacy. However, there are still some uncertainties regarding the concept of media literacy. Also, after the 2000s, it is observed that media literacy education has increased similarly due to people’s increasing interest in the academic field. Considering this process that continues until today, there is an accumulation of media literacy education. This study, which is designed as conceptual analysis, is to determine the essential elements that make up the field of media literacy by analyzing various definitions, models, usage areas, and relations with other literacy concepts related to media literacy. Thus, it is thought that the concept of media literacy will be presented in general terms and will contribute to the literature for people working in this field

Media literacy is defined as the ability to encode and decode the symbols transmitted via media and to synthesize, analyze and produce mediated messages. Media literacy raises questions about the impact of media and technology, which has the potential to increase individuals’ awareness about the effects of media on daily life. The aim of media literacy is to help students become competent, critical and literate in media forms because they need to interpret what they see or hear and prevent the interpretation from controlling them. Therefore, perceptions of students about their media literacy is a topic that requires attention at various education levels. The present study aimed to identify preparatory year program students’ self-perceptions about media literacy and to explore whether they benefited from mass media in learning a foreign language, English in this context. Data were collected using Media Literacy Level Determination Scale developed by Karatas (2008). Open-ended questions that aimed to reveal students’ perceptions of media literacy were asked with a view to supporting the data obtained from the scale. Both data collection tools also aimed to find out the factors associated with media literacy. The findings of the study are believed to open a perspective for the stakeholders in the language teaching process by providing insight into the university students’ stance towards media literacy.

Personalized marketing has become a common practice in online digital advertising, where ads are tailored to users based on their interests and online behavior. Advances in internet technology, software, and data analytics have made this strategy more effective than traditional mass marketing. In the past, one-to-one marketing was expensive and difficult, but digital platforms now make it easier and more efficient. However, personalization relies heavily on collecting users’ personal data, which raises privacy concerns. As targeted advertising increases, competition among marketers to capture consumer attention has also intensified. This has led to a stronger demand for consumer data. At the same time, many consumers are becoming more aware of how their data is used and feel uncomfortable with intrusive personalized ads. This creates a challenge for advertisers who want to attract attention without causing negative reactions. Researchers are therefore exploring ways to balance effective personalization with consumer privacy and trust.

The growth of online advertising has created several challenges such as excessive ads, highly personalized targeting, algorithmic bias, lack of transparency in ad placement, and complex financial flows in the ad-tech supply chain. Although industries and governments have introduced regulations and policies, monitoring systems often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving digital advertising ecosystem. The paper aims to develop a comparative and integrative framework for better regulatory oversight of online advertising. It uses a review of academic and grey literature to identify key challenges, mitigation strategies, and possible outcomes. The framework considers different market players, types of issues, and regulatory strategies. It also highlights areas needing further research and improvement. Overall, the study helps policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders balance the economic benefits of online advertising with user protection and transparency.

This case study provides practical and theoretical insights into the Stony Brook news literacy program, which is one of the most ambitious and well-funded curricular experiments in modern journalism education and media literacy. Analysis of document, interview, and observation data indicates that news literacy educators sought to teach students how to access, evaluate, analyze, and appreciate journalism. Students responded favorably to the approach that was designed for all undergraduates, instead of just journalism majors. Implications and future directions include looking at the preferred readings of news texts found in the Stony Brook curriculum in the same way one would contextualize lessons in college-level music appreciation courses.

In the age of digitalization, Digital and Media Literacy (DML) has gained increasing attention in European compulsory education, blending insights and experiences from the media education and digital literacy domains. Teacher education, starting from pre-service education, is central for the actual integration of DML education in classroom practice. This article discusses the case study of a two-credit introductory course to DML education for pre-service pre-primary and primary school teachers in Switzerland. The course, partially co-designed with its participants, intentionally explored many topics (as opposed to the in-depth analysis of a few) and focused on hands-on experimentation and reflection. The data collected with a pre/post survey and follow-up interviews offer insights on the evolution of pre-service teachers’ approach to DML, on their perceived role as teachers in this domain, on selfefficacy, and on potential enablers and obstacles to implementing DML activities in class. The case study suggests that, despite the limited space in the curriculum and resources available, even a short course can make a difference and enable teachers to integrate DML in their profession.

A case study of Sweden and Lithuania aims at analysing the important question of inclusion and exclusion when it comes to the media literacy and the digital divide. Analysis of country-level factors, such as social stratification, technological infrastructure, educational system, cultural values is provided with the goal to identify the keen factors widening the digital divide of certain population groups in both countries. The study has revealed that in regard to media literacy, age matters the most in case of Lithuania. On the contrary, in Sweden the digital divide between different age groups is diminishing but the media literacy of socio-economically marginalized groups (immigrants in particular) is much lower as compared to the general trends in population. The digital generation – children and teenagers – have got much more in common in both countries as opposed to the senior adult populations

This investigation highlights the ways and means of students’ formation of media literacy skills under the conditions of total and emergent distance learning in the lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The case study involved 138 first-year students from Sumy National Agrarian University, Ukraine, who studied English as a foreign language (EFL). Analysis, synthesis, and generalization of scientific data were conducted to determine the requirements and materials for the survey. Media literacy of the participants in the experimental group was developed through performance of a series of social media projects, critical analysis of social media texts, and creation of social media content. Pedagogical observation and expert estimation were employed to obtain qualitative results of partiucipants’ progress during practical classes and extracurricular activities. Psychological techniques and mathematical methods were employed to measure and assess the quantitative data of the experiment. The outcomes of the study revealed the positive dynamics of the development of reflective-evaluative, collaborative, and searching-creative skills of participants in the experimental group as well as improvement in their English proficiency. The result of this study is potentially appropriate for educators who are interested in the application of media technologies in foreign-language teaching.

With the changing media environment, media literacy education is an emerging field in China. Many studies have shown the significance of media literacy education, but they have mostly been conducted in the Western context, and there have been a few studies investigating media literacy education in the Asian context. Based on this understanding, this study aimed to explore the implementation of, and approaches to, media literacy education in a Chinese primary school. It aimed to shift media literacy education from an international context to a local setting, and offers a point of reference to enrich the theory and practice of the process of localisation. The research questions focused on how media literacy education was initiated in the context of the national curriculum reform in mainland, and two ways in which it was implemented in a primary school. It was a qualitative case study, using observation, interview, focus groups, group meetings and document analysis as the main methods of collecting data in the field.

This chapter provides a theoretical framework of critical media literacy (CML) pedagogy and examples of practical implementation in K-12 and teacher education. It begins with a brief discussion of literature indicating the need for educators to use a critical approach to media. The historical trajectory of CML and key concepts are then reviewed. Following this, the myths of “neutrality” and “normalcy” in education and media are challenged. The chapter takes a critical look at information and communication technologies and popular culture, reviewing how they often reinforce and occasionally challenge dominant ideologies. Next, this critical perspective is used to explore how CML interrogates the ways media tend to position viewers, users, and audiences to read and negotiate meanings about race, class, gender, and the multiple identity markers that privilege dominant groups. The subjective and ubiquitous nature of media is highlighted to underscore the transformative potential of CML to use media tools for promoting critical thinking and social justice in the classroom.

This article explores what critical thinking might mean in a media and information literacy (MIL) context by investigating how critical thinking is expressed in three reports that relate MIL to radicalization awareness and counter extremism. The purpose is to engage with recent debates about MIL and research on critical thinking and contribute to a grounded and theoretically informed foundation for discussing MIL competence. Findings indicate a primitive use of the term critical thinking, often bundled up with concepts such as democracy, creativity, and citizenship. More detailed and concrete descriptions about what to expect from critical thinking in a MIL framework display what can be described as a Gnostic impulse: critical thinking as a skill to reveal hidden meanings, to see through propaganda and flawed arguments. In other words, a critical thinking that asks people to doubt what they see. This notion is problematized in relation to writings on media literacy and critical thinking, focusing on the importance of acknowledging reflexivity and identity in the definition of critical thinking.

This qualitative study followed a group of classroom teachers as they explored the instructional possibilities of teaching with and about multimedia and popular culture, and their efforts to integrate critical multimedia literacy into their teaching. Throughout the semester, the teachers practiced critiquing and incorporating multiple media such as film, television, and digital technologies into their teaching. The semester-long research project documented some of the benefits and challenges of incorporating popular culture, mass media, and critical literacy into content area classes.

The article Critical Media Literacy: Research, Theory, and Practice in “New Times” by examines the concept of **critical media literacy** in contemporary digital and popular culture. It reviews existing research and theoretical perspectives to explain how media literacy helps students analyze media messages, question power relations, and understand how audiences are positioned by media texts. The authors argue that young people actively engage with media and popular culture rather than consuming it passively. The article emphasizes integrating critical media literacy into education so learners can critically interpret media, challenge dominant ideologies, and participate more thoughtfully in a rapidly evolving media environment.

The concept of critical media literacy expands the notion of literacy to include different forms of mass communication and popular culture, as well as deepens the potential of literacy education to critically analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power. The authors argue that critical media literacy is crucial for participatory democracy in the twenty-first century, and that the only progressive option that exists is how to teach it, not whether to teach it. The article, first, explores the theoretical underpinnings of critical media literacy and demonstrates examples from community-based after school programs and an inner-city elementary school that received a federal grant to integrate media literacy and the arts into the curriculum. A multiperspectival approach addressing issues of gender, race, class and power is used to explore the interconnections of media literacy with cultural studies and critical pedagogy. It is argued that alternative media production must engage students to challenge the master narratives and the systems that make them appear natural. The article then explores the public policy options open to implementing a critical media literacy program. Focusing on media literacy policy in the USA, different approaches commonly used for teaching media literacy are explored and a hybrid critical media literacy framework is proposed. In this day and age of standardized high-stakes testing and corporate solicitations in public education, radical democracy depends on a Deweyan reconceptualization of literacy and the role of education in society. The authors conclude that on the public policy level critical media literacy must reframe our understanding of literacy so that these ideas become integrated across the curriculum at all levels from pre-school to university.

Scholars have long recognized that reading in digital spaces requires unique skills, strategies, and competencies in comparison to those needed for reading printed text. In recent years, the ubiquity of social media and algorithmically targeted content has radically changed the nature of online reading and meaning making. Technological changes have occurred simultaneously with radically altered sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts. To account for an altered technological and sociocultural landscape, new approaches to teaching digital reading and critical media literacy are needed. Addressing these concerns, this case study detailed a digital reading curriculum designed to be responsive to both the contemporary digital media environment and to students’ out-of-school digital literacy practices and contexts. The curriculum was collaboratively designed by five middle-school language arts teachers who participated in a semester-long professional learning group focused on digital reading. Drawing upon sociocultural, asset-based, and culturally relevant philosophies of education, these five teachers designed a unique digital reading curriculum. This study examined the nature of this curriculum. The findings detailed four aspects of the teachers’ unit: (1) digital reading instruction situated within students’ literate lives; (2) critical instruction regarding systemic features of the internet such as algorithms and clickbait; (3) lessons in which students interrogate socially situated meaning making; and (4) lessons focused on the role of emotions while reading online. The findings have implications for future digital reading and media literacy curricula intended to be responsive to students’ funds of knowledge, ever-changing literacy technologies, and new, emergent ways of reading and practicing literacy on the internet.

The post-truth era has challenged traditional ways of teaching journalism and media literacy. Media literacy education can offer a useful lens for teaching students to be more critical. This pedagogy article describes a semester-long undergraduate course designed to deconstruct information disorder in the post-truth era by looking at economics, ideology, and power relations. Applying a project-based learning model allowed students to enhance their digital and media literacy skills by inquiring about the accuracy of a variety of sources centered on a single story.

This paper considers the extent to which critical thinking might be conceived of as a threshold concept which unlocks threshold capabilities in learners. Utilising a problem based learning approach to pedagogy the paper reports a small scale study which was designed to explore whether students in a Media Literacy class could be supported to develop their critical thinking capabilities. The paper argues that such capabilities represent a threshold transformation in learners, unlocking as they do a new way of engaging with media literacy. Using Baxter Magolda’s model of the development of critical thinking the study examines the extent to which students shift from a very egocentric view of the world to a more integrative and reflexive view of the world as their critical thinking capabilities become more sophisticated. The paper further argues that whilst critical thinking can be seen as a threshold concept it might also be viewed of as a threshold capability which is transferable across a number of domains - it transcends the discipline and might be considered to be a more complex threshold.

Objective: Globalization and rapid technological advancements demand that education evolve to incorporate digital literacy, essential for developing critical thinking skills. This research was conducted to describe the effect of optimizing digital literacy through the PBL model on the critical thinking skills of secondary school students. Method: This research used a Classroom Action Research model and was carried out in 3 cycles of four activities: planning, action, observation, and reflection. Results: The student's critical thinking skills significantly improved throughout PBL implementation. PBL encourages students to be active in solving real problems and allows them to apply digital literacy optimally. The strong correlation between digital literacy and critical thinking skills shows that both complement each other in evaluating and utilizing digital information effectively while honing critical judgment in problem-solving. These interrelated competencies strengthen the learning process, with a focus on problem-solving and in-depth analysis within the PBL framework.

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.

This study examines how problem-based learning (PBL) can help develop critical thinking in news media literacy education in higher education. It argues that students today have greater access to information and opportunities to express ideas, making media literacy and critical thinking skills increasingly important. The research defines critical thinking as a threshold concept and uses an epistemological threshold framework to analyze how PBL supports its development. The study involved 35 undergraduate students from an Applied English Department in Southern Taiwan and used classroom action research methods, including focus group interviews, questionnaires, teacher observations, and assessments of group work and individual writing tasks. Findings show that students’ learning through PBL was transformative but challenging, helping them gradually develop deeper understanding and critical thinking abilities. Collaboration between peers and teachers also supported cognitive, emotional, and social aspects of learning. The study ultimately proposes a reflective framework to guide future teaching practices in media literacy and critical thinking.

As new online and cellular technologies advance, the implications for the traditional textbook model of curricular instruction are profound. The ability to construct, share, collaborate on and publish new instructional materials marks the beginning of a global revolution in curricula development. Research-based media literacy frameworks can be applied to all subjects, and they enable teachers to have confidence that, in employing the frameworks to address academic subjects, themes or projects, students will gain content knowledge. Teaching through media literacy education strategies provides the opportunity to make media literacy central to teaching and learning, since media literacy process skills enable students to become self-directed lifelong learners, capable of addressing any subject. What are characteristics of curricula that use media literacy frameworks? How does such curricula differ from traditionally constructed curricula? And why should administrators and teachers embrace this change? As education is moving from paper-based, face-to-face classwork to technology-enabled curricula that is better, faster and cheaper, educators need new yet proven approaches and curricular resources to delivering effective lessons and outcomes. With media literacy education, this shift is not only possible but also imperative for providing curricula for the globalized classroom.

The inquiry-based learning platform mix game-based learning using metaverse, or IBL platform mixed with GBL using metaverse, was developed with an intention to enhance digital literacy and empathy skills, which are regarded as essential skills in the 21st century. The IBL platform mixed with GBL using metaverse was designed with the combination of inquiry-based learning and game-based learning processes mixed with metaverse technology. The platform developed in this study is intended to create virtual learning experiences in which learners can use their avatars to interact with the environments and other learners in metaverse. The main objective of this research were to design and study the results of the IBL platform mixed with GBL using metaverse. The population derived from purposive sampling are nine experts from different institutions with experiences in the fields of development of instruction platform and instruction systems. The results of this research show that the design of the IBL platform mixed with GBL using metaverse in terms of elements is at highest level. According to the results of this research, it can be summarized that the IBL platform mixed with GBL using metaverse contains all appropriate components and it can be employed as a guideline for learning that focuses on problem-solving processes. It is believed that the learning of this style can encourage learners to practically perform analytical thinking process in a systematic manner, and meanwhile allow them to see through the problems with systematic thinking and with the aid of technology.