The paper examines the lack of a clear definition of bias in library literature and critiques existing teaching methods that treat bias as inherently negative and easy to identify. It argues that identifying bias is a complex cognitive process involving recognizing types of bias, establishing an objective baseline, and assessing its impact. Drawing on insights from multiple disciplines, the paper proposes a clear definition of bias and a practical framework for evaluating it. The study emphasizes the need for a nuanced approach to teaching bias identification to better prepare individuals for evaluating information in a post-truth society.
This research investigated the impact of media and information literacy (MIL) on education faculty students’ acquisition of the skills needed to detect fake news. A one-group experimental design was employed with a randomly selected sample of 100 Jordanian undergraduate students. The participants completed one pre-test and two post-tests, each of which consisted of 10 closed-ended questions and one open-ended question on how to detect fake news. The results indicated that studying MIL has an impact on students’ acquisition of the skills needed to detect fake news. The findings also suggested that the methods students employed to identify and detect fake news after studying the MIL course were scientific and well-reasoned. Based on the results, several recommendations are made that will be of value to researchers and workers in this field.
The review highlights the importance of media literacy in combating misinformation by strengthening critical thinking skills. It shows that media literacy programs help individuals evaluate information sources, identify bias, and resist false or misleading content. Evidence indicates that trained individuals are less likely to believe or share misinformation. The review emphasizes effective teaching approaches, such as interactive learning and real-world examples, and stresses the need to integrate media literacy into education to support informed citizenship, public discourse, and democratic engagement in the digital age.
The study examines how information literacy skills and critical thinking strategies influence students’ ability to judge the reliability of internet sources. Using a descriptive correlational design with 500 randomly selected students, it draws on the ACRL framework and UNESCO’s Digital Literacy Global Framework. The findings show that students with strong information literacy and critical thinking skills are better at evaluating accuracy, detecting bias, and identifying misinformation online. The study emphasizes the need to integrate information literacy and critical thinking training into academic curricula to help students become informed and responsible digital citizens.
Marking biased texts effectively increases media bias awareness, but its sustainability across new topics and unmarked news remains unclear, and the role of AI-generated bias labels is untested. This study examines how news consumers learn to perceive media bias from human- and AIgenerated labels and identify biased language through highlighting, neutral rephrasing, and political orientation cues. We conducted two experiments with a teaching phase exposing them to various bias-labeling conditions and a testing phase evaluating their ability to classify biased sentences and detect biased text in unlabeled news on new topics.
We find that, compared to the control group, both human- and AI-generated sentential bias labels significantly improve bias classification (p < .001), though human labels are more effective (d = 0.42 vs. d = 0.23). Additionally, among all teaching interventions, participants best detectbiased sentences when taught with biased sentence or phrase labels (p < .001), while politicized phrase labels reduce accuracy. The effectiveness of different media literacy interventions remains independent of political ideology, but conservative participants are generally less accurate (p =.011), suggesting an interaction between political inclinations and bias detection. Our research provides a novel experimental framework into assessing the generalizability of media bias awareness and offer practical implications for designing bias indicators in newsreading platforms and media literacy curricula.
Institutions of higher education continue to emphasize the need to create and develop global citizen graduates who will face challenging global issues in the workforce. A systematic literature review of empirical studies on global citizenship in higher education was conducted to understand the various ways this term is being studied, measured, and operationalized. The process of inclusion and exclusion criteria identified 57 studies. A content analysis revealed global citizenship is being included into higher education through scales of measurement, studying abroad, faculty and student perceptions, coursework, and university programs. The results are discussed in relation to the current literature on global citizenship along with future avenues of research.
Within both academic and policy discourses, the concept of media literacy is being extended from its traditional focus on print and audiovisual media to encompass the internet and other new media. The present article addresses three central questions currently facing the public, policy-makers and academy: What is media literacy? How is it changing? And what are the uses of literacy? The article begins with a definition: media literacy is the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts. This four-component model is then examined for its applicability to the internet.
This article considers how media educators can respond to the new challenges and opportunities of the Internet, and of digital media more broadly. It begins by exploring the value and limitations of the notion of ‘literacy’ in this context. It argues that ‘competence-based’ definitions of literacy tend to neglect the social diversity of literacy practices, and to retain a narrow focus on ‘information’, and it suggests that a broader definition of literacy necessarily entails a more critical approach. It then moves on to consider the nature of digital literacy more specifically.
Digital literacy often serves as an ‘umbrella’ term for a range of distinct educational practices which seek to equip the user to function in digitally rich societies. This article explores two of these practices, information literacy and media literacy and through an examination of their histories and practices proposes a future direction for digital literacy. The article consists of three main sections. Section one considers the history of information literacy. The gradual development and refinement of information literacy is traced through a number of key texts and proclamations. Section two is concerned with media literacy. It is noted that media literacy education evolved in three broad strands with each pursuing differing political ends and utilising different techniques. The three approaches are still evident and differences in contemporary media education practices can be understood through this framework.
What society needs from media in the age of digital communication is literacy in understanding media, they ways they operate, and what it means for society.
This study examines how social media functions as a primary channel for accessing and sharing information on current issues. It explores the role of social media in disseminating information on contemporary issues and assesses users’ digital literacy in this context.
This study proposes a new conceptual framework of social media literacy (SoMeLit) that shifts focus from mass media content analysis to the individual user’s role in constructing social media reality.
This study systematically reviews research on vlogs, ethnoscience, and social media literacy between 2016–2020, using the PRISMA framework. It finds that most studies—largely from Indonesia—use diverse methods and report positive effects on learning outcomes, motivation, critical thinking, and creativity.
This study provides a descriptive and systematic review of the emerging concept of social media literacy by examining how it is defined and conceptualized in existing research. It shows that social media literacy extends media literacy by integrating platform-specific, technical, critical, and socio-emotional competences.
This study develops and validates a standardized instrument to assess network media literacy, a key competence for effective internet use and participation in knowledge societies. Drawing on a composite conceptual model, the authors constructed items and administered them to a large, nationally distributed sample in China.
This study validates the COVID-19 Media Literacy Scale (C-19MLs) by examining its psychometric properties among university students. The analysis resulted in a 21-item scale with five dimensions related to evaluating credible information, identifying fake COVID-19 content, media formats, and audience interpretation.
This research focuses on validating a New Media Literacy (NML) scale and assessing the NML competencies of preservice teachers. Results indicate stronger skills in functional media consumption and weaker abilities in critical and participatory media production.
This study evaluates the psychometric quality of six media literacy measures used to assess critical thinking about general and appearance-focused media in the context of eating disorder risk prevention.
This study aimed to create a reliable and valid scale to measure individuals’ perceptions of media literacy. The finalized Media Literacy Perception Scale consists of 16 items across three dimensions.
This study focuses on the need to assess teachers’ media literacy competencies and their ability to foster media literacy among students. It describes the multi-stage development of a questionnaire designed to measure these competencies at both individual and team levels.
This study addresses the challenge of measuring media literacy by developing and testing a pilot media literacy scale grounded in a composite conceptual model.
This study focuses on developing a generalized and objective media literacy scale that can be applied across different types of media content. The scale consists of three core dimensions—analysis, evaluation, and comprehension—and explains over half of the total variance.
This research focuses on developing a valid tool to assess media literacy among elementary school students, a group often overlooked in existing measurement scales. The study adapts the Media Literacy Self-assessment Scale (MLSS) and tests it with primary students in Taiwan.
This study focuses on conceptualizing and measuring new media literacy (NML) in the context of a participatory digital society where individuals actively consume, produce, and critique media content. The authors develop and validate a New Media Literacy Scale (NMLS) for university students.
This article examines the development of media literacy education in the United States, with a strong emphasis on pedagogy and instructional methods grounded in constructivist learning theory, media studies, and cultural studies.