Media and Information Literacy Repository – South Asia

The ability of citizens to establish the credibility of information and information sources through critical assessment is often emphasized as essential for the upholding of a democratic society and for people’s health and safety. Drawing on material-discursive conceptualizations, the article asks, how does critical assessment of information and information sources play out as it is folded into a networked information infrastructure in which different types of information are mediated and shaped by the same algorithms and flattened into the same interfaces? The empirical material comprises dyadic interviews with 61 adolescents. The interviews were analysed using an interpretative approach focusing on the construction of action and meaning. The analysis foregrounds trust and agency as two dimensions. This way normative assumptions become visible as stereotypes, sometimes positioned as ideals towards which to strive, other times as deterrent examples: the non-evaluator, the naïve evaluator, the skeptical evaluator and the confident evaluator. The created stereotypes help to comprehend different understandings of critical assessment of information and how these can bring about different actions. The article argues that critical assessment of information as an element in media and information literacy must be understood not just in relation to how it is used to assess the credibility of information, but also regarding how it is performatively enrolled in the shaping of knowledge and in the creation of ignorance and doubt.

With the rapid development of intelligent construction technologies, an increasing number of studies have focused on the application of information technology in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. However, studies on Information Literacy Skills (ILS) for engineering management (EM) postgraduates remain limited. The demand for ILS for EM postgraduates among employees in the real estate industry was investigated through a questionnaire survey. A questionnaire with 19 ILS indicators was distributed to employees from over 300 enterprises in the real estate and construction sectors, yielding 491 valid responses. The questionnaire’s Cronbach’s coefficient α of 0.963 indicates high reliability. No significant dual-factor loading was observed, which supported the scale’s high validity. Survey results revealed that 90% of respondents believed EM postgraduates should achieve “Comprehension” level or above across all ILS indicators. More than 40% of respondents emphasized the importance of engineering information system planning and design, Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence-related ILS. Therefore, it is recommended that ILS be integrated into the curriculum or practical training of EM postgraduates. This study offers significant insights and serves as a critical reference for enhancing the information literacy competencies of EM postgraduates, who are encouraged to strengthen these essential skills.

This original research is directed towards the information literacy of international master’s students, focusing on the evaluation of their information-seeking behaviour during competitive and business intelligence processes, together with the subsequent verification methods they use once the desired information is found. During this research, 207 students received a test with questions related to business information literacy, with either one or more options or free-text answers. The results showed a significant lack of information literacy in the use of information sources, including knowledge about their existence and consequent search habits, but they did at least also show a fundamental awareness of verification methods. The students also demonstrated awareness of the significance of data visualisation needs when reporting the contexts found in business intelligence process data.

Applying a skills-based approach to media and information literacy (MIL), this study explores the MIL competencies of teachers in multi-ethnic schools in Yunnan Province, China. A focus group approach was used. Results showed: (1) teachers have limited access to media and information technologies; (2) teachers do not show much of an understanding of the principles and theories of media and information technology; (3) teachers lack basic knowledge and technology proficiency to evaluate and critically analyze media; (4) content creation is limited. MIL competencies are limited by a variety of cultural, structural, organizational, and technological constraints. It has suggested the government to be aware of the importance of MIL education and equip teachers and students with MIL competencies to enable them to co-construct independent life-long learning skills.

This paper explores the teachers’ collective constructions of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) and examines several gaps and ways forward in implementing the curriculum. Consistent with the participatory and self-reflexive framework of Socially Shared Inquiry, the researcher conducted focus group workshops with seven MIL teachers from select public senior high schools in the Philippines. The findings provide insights into the teachers’ media experiences that correspond to their view of essential components and competencies of MIL. Institutional issues and challenges were elicited and analyzed, enabling the teachers to propose several solutions to these salient issues. These recommendations offer practical implications for the enhancement of MIL education, including the curricular reform that lends itself more to learning about media, and a needs-based professional development of MIL teachers. It is hoped that the findings would resonate with MIL researchers and practitioners in terms of examining how MIL is operationalized in various contexts.

This article uses critical media literacy to approach themes of sexism and gender inequality depicted in the 2023 film Barbie. Teachers cognizant of the need to address women’s rights issues in American history often struggle to find resources that are accessible and meaningful for their students. Furthermore, the use of film in social studies instruction can be an engaging and culturally relevant way for students to grapple with contentious issues in social studies education. Additionally, by using human rights concepts to frame inequality and inspire advocacy, teachers can address dimensions of oppression and inequality with a more ‘neutral’ or objective framing. Given the current political climate that instills fear in educators who teach about issues of gender, strategic approaches can empower social studies teachers to engage students in examinations of this contentious topic in American schools. Lastly, this article introduces perspectives of Black feminists and international activists to provide intersectional analyses of women’s rights issues to curb the common emphasis on White feminism. The lesson plan offered in this article includes a film viewing guide, enrichment opportunities, and an activity that connects themes in Barbie with women’s rights movements.

Studies on information and media literacy focus on describing activities and frameworks individually, and most of the time, connect within the field of library science. However, other frameworks and practices can be used. This case study presents the application of Behrman’s Critical Literacy Practices to information and media literacy to engage students to think critically about information within their field of study. The purpose of this research is to model the information behavior of education students through the perspective of constructivist learning. The study used a qualitative method with six upper-level undergraduate education majors. Activities that comprise practices and theories in both education and library sciences are presented to form a continuous exposure to critical thinking. Factors that influenced how students perceived the validity of information came from personal, educational, and societal factors. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion about critical thinking skills in undergraduate students, presenting a model that describes how practices from other fields can be used and incorporated with information and media literacy.

A teacher educator and college librarian collaboratively designed and taught teacher education workshops about finding and evaluating what works in teaching. This study investigated interactions of self-efficacy for information literacy, self-efficacy for solving problems with evidence-based practices, skills of searching for and citing sources, verbalized reasoning, and writing about evidence-based teaching practices. Students completed pre- and postsurveys, recorded screencasts while researching, and submitted papers regarding the effectiveness of one teaching practice. Students made significant self-efficacy gains in response to training. Furthermore, results demonstrated that early experience with information literacy and the self-efficacy that develops is a strong predictor of self-efficacy and performance later in the discipline-specific task to find, evaluate, and write about evidence-based teaching practices.

Amid growing concerns over digital misinformation and the evolving role of education in fostering media resilience, this study explores the effects of an online training program designed to enhance 159 Vietnamese K–12 teachers’ competencies in Media and Information Literacy. The program consisted of interactive modules covering MIL concepts, fact-checking strategies, digital ethics, and classroom integration techniques, delivered over six weeks. Participants engaged in collaborative tasks, practice-based reflection, and peer feedback. Results indicate significant gains in MIL knowledge, teaching self-efficacy, and classroom implementation among trained teachers, with the strongest improvements observed in their confidence to address misinformation and facilitate critical digital engagement. Effectiveness was amplified by sustained participation, prior digital experience, and urban school contexts. By equipping teachers with both conceptual and practical MIL tools, the program positioned them as informed digital mentors, capable of cultivating students’ critical media use. The findings underscore the importance of structured, context-sensitive training in fostering resilient digital citizenship in rapidly evolving educational landscapes.

This paper examines how the ‘empowerment spiral’ of early US media literacy – rooted in Freirean critical pedagogy and South American liberation theology – was rebranded as the ‘Pastoral Circle’ for Catholic educators in the early 1990s. Through discourse analysis of the Catholic Connections to Media Literacy (1992) curriculum kit, the article explores how theological and pedagogical concepts were selectively rearticulated to align with Catholic institutional authority. While preserving critical pedagogical practices such as dialogical reflection, the rebranding simultaneously served hegemonic purposes by subordinating media literacy to papal doctrine and avoiding references to radical social movements. Findings recover the direct roles of Catholic liberation theology and its Catholic labour movement antecedents in the history of critical media literacy. Discussion re-centers discourses of the Global South in the history of critical pedagogy in North America and globally, suggesting further research to explore how political, institutional, and cultural forces silenced and obscured the prominent roles of South American liberation theology in critical media literacy specifically, and critical pedagogy broadly. This historical analysis offers insight on contemporary issues in critical media literacy and critical pedagogy amidst current political actions to limit the study of diversity, equity, inclusion and so-called ‘controversial topics’ in schools and universities.

This article investigates information literacy among students in higher learning institutions in Ghana using Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) as a case study. Specifically, it sought to find out students’ information sources, the mechanisms instituted by the institution to promote information literacy, assess students’ information literacy skills, and find out the challenges impeding students’ access to information. Adopting the survey research design, 391 final-year undergraduate students and 3 librarians were conveniently sampled for the study. Results show that KNUST has put in place mechanisms to support information literacy and this includes a network of libraries, varied library tools and resources, and information literacy training and orientation programs. Students demonstrated competence in recognizing their information needs, evaluating information sources critically, and effectively utilizing gathered information for academic purposes. However, the findings underscore the need for targeted efforts to enhance skills in locating and accessing information sources, as well as in understanding ethical and legal considerations associated with information use. The study concludes that the institution’s efforts to promote information literacy can be bolstered by addressing key challenges faced by students in seeking information which reflect a complex interplay of technological, resource-related, and skill-related factors.

This study aims to investigate the information literacy (IL) skills of high school students and the practices used by educators to instill those IL competencies. Three foreign private high schools following an American-style curriculum covering grades 9 − 12 in the State of Kuwait participated in the study. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected using a mixed-methods approach based on the Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning and the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action. Students rated their IL abilities using a questionnaire survey, while four of their teachers were interviewed. The results showed schools are following IL standards, and students’ ratings confirm learning has occurred. Few studies have examined the information literacy competencies of high school students across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and based on the review of the literature, no study has investigated information literacy education of foreign private high schools in the State of Kuwait. The study provides insights into the current environment that could help in designing and managing IL programs as well as inspiring further research.

Information literacy (IL) has been studied extensively, but little has been written about IL applied to the study of theater. This study addresses that lacuna by evaluating the success of a librarian-faculty collaboration to integrate IL throughout a year-long course of study. Using a pre- and post-test methodology, researchers assessed students’ knowledge on a range of IL concepts. The results were used to modify the IL curriculum to place greater emphasis on IL concepts that students struggled with, and to de-emphasize IL concepts for which students demonstrated adequate incoming knowledge. This paper will provide recommendations for librarians and other instructors seeking to integrate IL concepts into a theater (or other performing arts) curriculum.

The problems of media education and media literacy, which have been in the focus of attention of different sciences for a long time, are closely related to free media access possibilities and ability to produce own media texts, on the one hand, and the ability to critically interpret information, on the other hand, and, most importantly, they are related to the issues of trust in the media and in the content generated by it as a whole. At the same time, it should be noted that the trust phenomenon itself is one of the most complicated phenomena in public relations studies. Paradoxically, however, even though the level of trust in mass media as a social institution continues to remain an important indicator of societal well-being, the ability to take a critical view of any media message, characterize a certain maturity of the social environment, a certain level of media literacy and critical mindset of citizens. That is exactly why it deemed important for us to emphasize the issues of trust in information sources in the course of a survey of Russian students’ media literacy level which took a few years, the results of which are presented in this article.

Engaging with digital media is part of everyday living for the majority of children, yet opportunities to learn about, through and with media are denied many pupils in compulsory schooling. Whilst Media Studies in the UK is internationally reputed to be well established, changes made to the primary and secondary national curriculum in 2014 included removal of existing media study elements. We demonstrate what is lost by these actions in relation to the United Nations Rights of the Child and, in particular, the right of the child to express identity. We demonstrate how media literacy had previously been included in curriculum, enabling opportunities to address children’s rights, and propose that the absence of media education is part of an overall trend of the non-prioritisation of children’s rights in England and Northern Ireland. The paper calls for media literacy to be reintroduced into primary and secondary curriculum.

The study investigates the effect of gender-integrated media literacy and media literacy training in terms of pre-service teachers’ noticing and analysing gendered messages in the media, and developing attitudes and consciousness towards these messages. The experimental design was used to examine whether the training sessions resulted in a change in the traits that were used to measure in pre-service teachers. The research data were collected through the Gender Equality-Conscious Media Literacy Scale, and the pre-test-post-test scores were analysed. Furthermore, the perspectives of pre-service teachers who participated in the training sessions were investigated using content analysis after the training sessions. Gender-integrated media literacy training was found to be a highly effective method of noticing and analysing gendered elements in the media.

In recent years, scholar-activists have used hashtag syllabus movements to organize and share curricular resources related to pressing social and cultural issues in a widely accessible format. These collaboratively designed readings lists have provided many classroom-based educators with diverse and far-reaching texts with which to engage students on issues of social injustice and structural inequality. In this paper, we argue that having students develop hashtag syllabi in the context of interdisciplinary social science courses not only provides access to a breadth and depth of content knowledge and a range of perspectives on these topics but creates the conditions in which students can develop and strengthen critical information literacy skills. Using example assignments from introductory and upper-level undergraduate courses, we demonstrate the potential of these assignments to promote deep learning, challenge hegemonic knowledge production, address the personal and affective components of research, and connect our students’ work in the classroom to problems that exist outside of it.

Often coined as digital natives, contemporary teens are ascribed a paradoxical status of skilled but vulnerable media users. Therefore, media literacy initiatives often target young audiences in order to mitigate detrimental media effects as well as to facilitate emancipatory media engagements. The literature on media literacy draws from diverse disciplines (e.g. educational sciences, media studies) and examines a wide range of thematic areas (e.g. privacy, news, citizenship). However, the voices of those who are the target population of media literacy policy and research are seldom heard. We identify the absence of teenagers’ perceptions and experiences as a limitation in contemporary debates on media literacy. Therefore, this study aims to shed light on how teenagers give meaning to media literacy, how they perceive the contemporary discourse on the importance of media literacy for teens, and in which way they encounter concrete media literacy initiatives at school. Based on in-depth interviews with 31 high-school students between 16 and 18 year old, we found how teenagers primarily have a risk discourse in mind when talking about media literacy. Contextualizing these perceptions, it became clear that both the public discourse and media literacy initiatives largely draw from protectionist approaches.

The context of Europe and the ASEAN countries highlights a parallel growth of the concept of information literacy and the diversity of policies to solve information literacy issues. The comparative study aims to understand the influence of policies for the teaching of information literacy in universities in Italy and Thailand and was based on a theoretical framework built by international literature. The data was collected from the analysis of literature and web documentation in Italy and Thailand. The comparative analysis shows that the concept of information literacy has had a similar growth but the influence of policies for teaching information literacy in higher education is different in Italy and Thailand and still in continuous development. The results show that one element of success is the integration of information literacy into the higher education curriculum.

This paper presents the Mindfulness Framework for implementing mindfulness into Information Literacy instruction. The Mindfulness Framework is informed by findings from an original survey of the most preferred Information Literacy teaching strategies deployed by nearly 600 academic librarians in the United States and Canada, and grounded in the relevant literature from library and information science and education. Survey responses show that library instructors use a broad variety of teaching strategies, and the authors attempt to demonstrate how these strategies can support the integration of mindfulness into IL instruction. Using mindfulness strategies in other pedagogical contexts has been shown to improve learning and retention. This is the first paper to explore and discuss how librarians can use familiar strategies to integrate mindfulness into information literacy instruction.

Amid growing concerns over digital misinformation and the evolving role of education in fostering media resilience, this study explores the effects of an online training program designed to enhance 159 Vietnamese K–12 teachers’ competencies in Media and Information Literacy. The program consisted of interactive modules covering MIL concepts, fact-checking strategies, digital ethics, and classroom integration techniques, delivered over six weeks. Participants engaged in collaborative tasks, practice-based reflection, and peer feedback. Results indicate significant gains in MIL knowledge, teaching self-efficacy, and classroom implementation among trained teachers, with the strongest improvements observed in their confidence to address misinformation and facilitate critical digital engagement. Effectiveness was amplified by sustained participation, prior digital experience, and urban school contexts. By equipping teachers with both conceptual and practical MIL tools, the program positioned them as informed digital mentors, capable of cultivating students’ critical media use. The findings underscore the importance of structured, context-sensitive training in fostering resilient digital citizenship in rapidly evolving educational landscapes.

Media and information literacy (MIL) education is seen to be one of the solutions in dealing with concerns regarding information disorder. While there exists an MIL course in the Philippine senior high school curriculum, it is undeniable that strengthening peoples’ knowledge on the topic is essential. As such, the inclusion of a course on information literacy to the undergraduate curriculum in the School of Library and Information Studies of the University of the Philippines Diliman is a step in the right direction in ensuring that students consciously and continuously practice ethical engagements with information. Officially included in the curriculum in 2018, a year later, research focused on the course’s development was conducted. This research builds upon the researcher’s earlier work on course development. This time, the researcher who is also the one teaching the course, examines the teaching and learning practices employed in the delivery of the course, through an autoethnographic approach. Reflections were thematically analyzed and mapped against the Media and Information Literacy Core Educator’s Competencies released by UNESCO in 2021. The goal of this research is to serve as reference allowing MIL educators to reflect on and have an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in terms of content and pedagogy. Findings could also contribute to the development of course materials related to the teaching of MIL.

This paper presents findings from a study into children’s media and information literacy (MIL). The purpose of the study was to understand English primary school children’s (ages 8–11) attitude toward the internet as well as their ability to find, use and evaluate information. This then informed the development of a MIL programme of learning for primary schools. Data analysis showed that the children demonstrated low levels of MIL, for example, when identifying bias and distinguishing between fact and opinion. In addition, working in a group did not lead to better MIL. There were limited strategies for successful co-operation and often the dominant group members’ views were prioritised over evidence from the text. Therefore, working with the Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI) at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, we propose a MIL curriculum that focuses both on content but also collaborative dialogic skills such as listening to others and changing one’s own point of view.

This paper explores the teachers’ collective constructions of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) and examines several gaps and ways forward in implementing the curriculum. Consistent with the participatory and self-reflexive framework of Socially Shared Inquiry, the researcher conducted focus group workshops with seven MIL teachers from select public senior high schools in the Philippines. The findings provide insights into the teachers’ media experiences that correspond to their view of essential components and competencies of MIL. Institutional issues and challenges were elicited and analyzed, enabling the teachers to propose several solutions to these salient issues. These recommendations offer practical implications for the enhancement of MIL education, including the curricular reform that lends itself more to learning about media, and a needs-based professional development of MIL teachers. It is hoped that the findings would resonate with MIL researchers and practitioners in terms of examining how MIL is operationalized in various contexts.

Media and information literacy (MIL) is one of the crucial factors to sustain in the age of information explosion. Particularly, LIS students need to be literate regarding media and information around them to provide authentic information in their future workplaces. The study aims to identify the MIL self-efficacy level of LIS students and the influence of demographics on this. The study adopted a quantitative approach to identify the MIL level of LIS students using a structured questionnaire. The data was collected from 337 LIS students from different public and private universities in Bangladesh using a convenience sampling technique. The study reveals that LIS students in Bangladesh rated their level of MIL as moderate, but at the same time, they are confident regarding their competence in accessing relevant resources using different media. It is also observed that LIS students’ MIL level is comparatively less in creation than other dimensions like access, evaluation, use, and understanding. The research also found significant differences between the students’ demographics and their MIL level. This is one of the first attempts in Bangladesh to analyze LIS students’ MIL self-efficacy level. The study can be broadened in the future to understand the factors affecting the MIL level of LIS students in Banglaesh by adopting a qualitative research strategy. In addition, the problems can also be identified from future studies which will provide a guideline to the respective LIS departments on how to improve the MIL level of the students.