International Journal of Media and Information Literacy

249-258

Authors: Safa Ilyas Ahmed, Anjum Zia

In this study the social media interactivity among digital natives and digital immigrants in Lahore has been evaluated. The primary goal of this research is to determine whether they are participating in social media interactivity or not. In continuation to this their social media interaction patterns have been highlighted. The interview of total 16 participants were carried out. These participants belong to a variety of communities including students, academics, psychologists, sociologists, and housewives. They are chosen based on their interest in and frequency of social media interactions. Data was collected through a semi structured interview and examined using thematic analysis. The results revealed that the digital natives and digital immigrants both spend a significant time of their daily lives interacting with social media. Both natives and immigrants have comparable intentions of staying connected, following recent trends on social media and interacting with friends and family. These research threads address high-profile problems and debates surrounding both groups' involvement in social media interactivity, and they provide fertile ground for future research.

274-282

Authors: Tatiana Byundyugova, Anna Babikova, Elena Kornienko

Global technological changes and the widespread use of information and communication technologies lead to the need to study the formation of information literacy skills of various demographic groups. The formation of the information economy creates increased requirements for the level of proficiency in digital and information technologies in order to successfully exist in a modern high-tech environment, which leads to the need for changes in the education system. These changes are aimed at developing the ability to understand the dynamics of the information world, to navigate the increasing flow of information. To this end, the latest technologies are actively used in educational programs, which, on the one hand, improve the quality of the educational process, helping to master educational content more effectively, and on the other hand, contribute to the mastery and use of digital and information technologies by students. This study examines the technologies of visual learning, which significantly improve the quality of the educational process. As part of the study of modern trends in the educational environment, the emphasis was placed on the use of visualization as a form of presentation of educational material. Different forms of visualization were investigated: active, passive, value-semantic, universal for different age groups of respondents (schoolchildren, students, adults), a total of 412 people participated in the study. For six months, they worked with different forms of visualization as part of the training. It was revealed that it is necessary to take into account age factors, motivational features that will allow you to build individual training routes based on operating with different forms of visual information, which will allow you to critically and systematically study materials, qualitatively develop skills and abilities, be effective, achieve goals and results.

289-298

Authors: Beatriz Feijoo, Charo Sádaba, Gemma Martínez

Despite its relevance, the difficulty in reaching consensus on the definition of digital competence slows down its implementation. The need of prior development of specific skills to advance in digital development has been recently reported. The acquisition of skills involves making the most of the opportunities offered by the digital environment. This article shows the results from a research conducted on 501 parent-child dyads in Chile in which minors aged 10 to 14 reported their self-perceptions on who (parents, siblings and peers) taught them certain technical and operational digital skills on mobile devices. Parents were also surveyed to know their perception about this children’s social mediation. Socio-demographic variables are also analysed. Chilean minors have a clear perception of autonomy in the acquisition of digital competence, parents underestimate their ability to influence, and other socialization agents such as siblings play a significant role. Age, gender and socioeconomic level to a lesser extent mark differences in the acquisition of these skills. In addition to providing a comparison on the perception parents and children have on the extent to which minors are accompanied while on their mobile phone, the article goes beyond parental mediation strategies and collects parental reflections on types of mediation.

311-320

Authors: Olga Gorbatkova

This article is dedicated to the problem of teenage extremism as a form of social deviation in the configuration of modern media texts in the transformation processes of Russia (based on the material of online mass media) and specific features of the media messages embodying extremist materials impact on the consciousness of the adolescent audience. The relevance of the reviewed subject is confirmed by the fact that recently the phenomenology of the concept of “teenage extremism” is a discursive object in the research space. A significant increase in the level of attention to the study of extremist counterculture reflection in the media continuum of Russian society in the context of transformational processes is noticeable. The author revealed that there is a tendency of active disputes regarding the disclosure of the essential features and signs of “extremism” concept, which is a confirmation of the complexity, versatility of this phenomenon. The basic core of the research work is the implementation of the hermeneutic analysis of Russian media space continuum in the practical segment, which recreates the ideological meaning of the image of teenage extremism manifestation. As a result of the research, the author revealed the main tendencies of extremism among adolescents in modern Russian society, specific features and content characteristics, gender, religious, ideological, worldview context of the text of online mass media. The media educational potential in the context of reducing the level of risks in the media associated with the broadcast of extremist manifestations among adolescents to the society is indicated.

329-337

Authors: Olha Harmatiy, Zoriana Haladzhun, Olena Makarchuk, Peter Kravčák

Nowadays, governments recognize the importance of communicating with citizens, especially communication online – given the high popularity of the Internet and modern technical achievements. For the authorities, the Internet expands opportunities to explain and promote their programs and decisions, to establish and maintain dialogue with the public, especially with young people as the most active and promising part of it. For citizens, Internet-based communication is a powerful tool for studying government activities and understanding the public influence on decision-making processes. Its importance is particularly acute in crises, such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, as government responsibility grows up, complexity of communication tasks rises, and demands, inquiries, and scrutiny from the public increase. The results of the survey of university students from Slovakia and Ukraine confirm the need in government information at crisis time. According to the study, local government official websites and local government social media sites are prior sources of information and news during the coronavirus outbreak. The obtained data provide implications for a better understanding of how young audiences perceive government online communication during the crisis in light of increasing Internet usage on the one hand, and public demand for open, accessible, and transparent government on the other hand.

354-363

Authors: Andrii E. Lebid, Mykola S. Nazarov, Natal'ya A. Shevchenko

This paper analyzes the use of the terms ‘information resilience’ and ‘social resilience’ in the context of national resilience strategies. It is shown that information resilience reflects transformations in the system of international relations and the domestic policies of different countries, as well as prospects for the development of information-and-communications technology and its impact on social processes. Based on the results of a research project implemented as part of this study, a hypothesis was formulated which stated that the majority of the Ukrainian people are not aware of the reality of information threats at this time. This hypothesis was supported based on an analysis of empirical data collected for the study. The study helped identify gaps between government and society in Ukraine in the following five key areas: values, goals, capabilities, motivation, and communication. It is shown that these gaps have had a significant impact on the overall level of information and national resilience in Ukraine. The information resilience of Ukrainian society was analyzed at the local level (through the example of Ukraine’s eastern and southeastern regions). It is suggested that the issue of social and information resilience is of particular relevance in the context of information and media literacy amongst the population, especially within small communities. In this context, an analysis was conducted of the information space of Ukraine’s eastern and southeastern regions. The resulting conclusion was that the level of media culture in Ukraine, determined by a number of both subjective and objective factors, is relatively low at this time.

376-386

Authors: Maria V. Plotnikova, Vladyslava M. Zavhorodnia, Sergey I. Degtyarev, Lyubov G. Polyakova

This paper aims to explore the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in the area of regulating the activity of online media, as well as establish the information, axiological, and legal potential of the Court’s decisions for shaping the content of new media literacy education. Insight is provided into a set of factors governing the need for adopting new conceptual approaches to establishing a sound legal framework for the operation of contemporary social media. The authors analyzed the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights dealing with the correlation and balance between the right to freedom of speech and expression and the right to privacy and the protection of the honor, dignity, and reputation of physical and legal persons. The authors singled out a set of legal provisions that need to be particularly focused on and promoted as particularly facilitative of the development of media literacy among both professional journalists and ordinary social media users who can create and/or distribute media content.

396-405

Authors: Lyudmila Seliverstova, Anastasia Levitskaya, Ilya Seliverstov

This article seeks to contribute to a theory of media's construction of reality – study the ways mass media use to shape a public figure's image, on the example of the Russian political leader's representation in foreign media. The main focus of the research is on the linguistic means by which this image is created and reinforced. The data are drawn from a selection of publications of the American newspaper Daily news and the German magazine Der Spiegel in the online format from 2000 to 2004 and from 2018 to 2020 . The authors examined is a striking and by far not unique example of how the world media construct the social reality for a contemporary man. In most cases, creating the media image of the President of Russia V. Putin, the Daily News and Der Spiegel appeal to readers’ negative emotions. Although on the pages of the German edition over the last three years it was possible to identify language means that positively characterize the leader of Russia, their share is insignificant. Since the selection of linguistic means directly affects what image will be formed in the mind of the reader, it can be concluded that the Western media deliberately form a predominantly negative media image of the Russian president, thereby manipulating the opinion of the German-speaking and English-speaking people. It should be admitted that powerful structures of information warfare and anti-Russian propaganda have long been developed in the West, and this propaganda itself, often mixed with Russophobia, has practically turned into a factor of global politics.

416-425

Authors: Larisa Skorova, Daria Suvorova

The study of the system of moral values of young people using film narrative, which has an effect on the impressions, meanings, significations, attitudes of people and values, human beliefs, treatment of people and values would determine mental health of an individual and psychological well-being of a society as a whole. Teenagers are those most susceptible to the exposure. The novelty of the study was that the evaluation of the impersonations of the characters in a situation of moral choice, transmission of moral values presented in the film narrative, was studied in adolescents without parental oversight, living in residential care facilities for more than 10 years. The methodological foundation of the study was the psychosemiotic approach to content analysis. A toolbox of techniques was used in the study: theoretical analysis, immanent analysis of the film; factorial analysis; a dedicated semantic differential was used to discover the factors revealing the semantics of the impersonations of the characters of the film narrative in a situation of moral collision, and to compare their perception by different groups of teenagers; analysis of letters to the character was carried out using the procedure of content analysis. We proceeded from the assumption that teenagers' perception and semantic evaluation of the characters of the film narrative in the situation of moral choice was determined by their experience of living in the situation of moral choice and conditions of their upbringing; the system of values presented in the film narrative, the situation of moral collision experienced by the characters, determined the perception and semantic evaluation of their impersonations by modern teenagers. The study was carried out on the basis of schools in Irkutsk, facilities for children without parental care (Republic of Buryatia, Irkutsk) (n = 78). 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' motion picture was used as stimulus material. It was demonstrated that teenagers left without parental care would perceive the characters of the motion picture in positive categories of morality more often than those raised in families. The attitude towards the characters of a movie who were in a situation of moral choice, was determined by the categories of nobility, peacefulness, humanity, tolerance, and piety. The identified differences could be explained by their experience of living in a situation of moral choice, the attitude toward children in situations of living hardships, the individual psychological differences of adolescents. Differences in attitudes could also be seen as the reason for differences in the effectiveness of the impression of the movie. It was substantiated that the situation of moral choice in cinematography served as a tool for shaping moral values. The study sustained the idea of the potential of motion pictures, their effect on shaping moral values of adolescents, complemented the data on the effect of the film narrative on personal development and individual differences in the evaluation of media products. The obtained findings set the task of identifying the mechanisms of positive influence of movies on different groups of adolescents.

436-446

Authors: Sonali Srivastav, Shikha Rai

The study is aimed at examining the online brand image building and user engagement strategies adopted by the two Video on Demand Service providers, Amazon Prime Video India and Netflix India. It also analyses the communication patterns between the subscribers and the brand. The paper utilizes a method called Netnography or virtual Ethnography and studies two communities – the official Facebook groups – Netflix India and Amazon Prime Video India. Data was collated by acquiring two approaches, Observation and Extraction of archival data. The method not only shed light on strategies used by the service providers to engage the audience, but also witnessed the efforts by the brands of converting consumers into fan bases. It helped in discerning the communication process within the community, within the members and with the brand, contributing towards a brand building exercise on the Facebook group. Lastly, the data gathered also helped in evaluating quantitatively and qualitatively if the methods are working in favor of the brands or not. The results are not only indicative of how social media presence affects a brand image, but also how fan cultures have replaced the relationship of a service provider and buyer. These groups are emerging not only as sites of creating market space, but also for fan congregations. Participants interact not only with the brand, but also with each other and further inviting new subscribers to the group as well, laying a case for virtual word of mouth publicity. These groups are also instrumental in providing a quick feedback to the administrators of the page about the strategies adopted for marketing their content through Facebook groups.

453-463

Authors: Safeena Yaseen, Ibtesam Mazahir, Jeyasushma Veeriah, Iqra Iqbal

The term electronic word of mouth has witnessed a constant evolution due to the technological advancements and increased internet mediated consumer conversations. The topic has become a subject of interest for both business professionals and academic scholars with its growing importance in business research. Past studies mostly discussed the dynamic nature of eWOM under the strong influence of emerging concepts and technological innovations. However, very few research studies have viewed its extensive evolution in the context of a basic model of communication. In this research paper, a theoretical review was conducted to systematically organize the literature findings to develop an eWOM communication model. From participants’ classification and motivation to generate eWOM to its influence on receivers, the model elaborates all the basic elements of communication process which also include content type and transmitting platform. This paper significantly contributes to elaborate the basic eWOM communication process by the extensive analyzation of the existing body of knowledge which will help in building a strong foundation of the topic for future studies.