The Power and Politics of Media and Information Literacy

We are living in a media-saturated world. Not only we receive information, we have become prosumers and are able to communicate with the ‘world.’ This has been widely reflected in the academic texts. But is there a dark side to this ‘age of information freedom?’ My argument in this paper is that although we have gotten rid of one sort of tyranny and can more freely speak up, a more suppressive and widespread process of control and surveillance is underway. Worse than that, we the users seem to be comfort with that

Shifting from Individualism to Genericism: Personalization as a Conspiracy Theory

With severe mistrust around classical approaches to consciousness, this paper claims that arguments around the notion of “personalization” of media or messages are grounded on a misinterpretation. Based on the two presuppositions of respective differentiation of human beings and the power to make choices based on reasoning, these approaches have been the reference for many well-known scientific studies, mainly in the fields of media studies, economics, political sciences, and psychology. Despite refuting their results via meta-analyses, such theories have so far sought to maintain their position by resorting to conspiracy theories, the promotion of which, ironically, leads to the syndrome of skepticism, which supports its origins in a vicious circle. While these approaches have been ubiquitous in so-called cognitive priming, projection of mass movements and political abuses of the concepts such as misinformation or disinformation, the mainstream workouts in the fields including but not limited to Perception Management, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning have significantly relied on both de-individualistic and irrational processes. This article aims to prove that the ontological claims about the centrality of individualism in the latest fields of all media and communication technological procedures are grounded in a conspiracy theory. Relying on the method of epistemological reasoning, this article attempts to prove that individualism and personalization in the field of the media industry are the principal tools of social control through the spread of skepticism, which takes advantage of the fictitious nature of the new media sphere for commercial and political purposes

Intra/Inter communications in Social Network and Intermediary of the Media Influencers

This paper focuses on the role of influencers as an element of modern governance. As the fields of media, entertainment industry, and politics become increasingly interconnected, the phenomenon of influencer potentially affects many aspects of political life, such as campaigning and voting, policymaking, and international affairs. Using the network analysis method and applying a triple typification of influencers consists of media influencers, influencer politicians in power, and influencer opposition politicians out of power, and selecting 245 nodes on Instagram accounts, the article focuses on how do influencers interact within communication networks? Based on the triple typification, the article tries to find the pattern of networked political communications between influencers in the social network. The results prove that all three types of influencers are more interested in intra-group communication. However, both influencer politicians in power and influencer opposition politicians out of power have relatively similar tendencies to associate with media influencers

Internet (Information/Skill) Literacy in Iran

This study examines the associations of internet information literacy with two variables: (1) the ability to work with technical aspects of the internet (internet skill), and (2) attitudes about the need for qualitative necessities in the development of e-services. A hierarchical regressions software analyzes data from a national sample of 2134 internet users. In this paper, internet literacy is considered as a literacy which has two-dimensional aspects including information literacy and skill literacy. In an articulation as this, many of the capabilities associated with the internet such as technical, critical, analytical, and structural factors are studied. In addition, abilities that lead users to make distinctions between useful, safe and healthy data and fake, hateful and unhealthy data are taken into account. The analysis shows that the internet information literacy is positively related to internet skills. It is also shown that more internet information literacy leads to more demands for e-services’ qualitative necessities (in the eight indicators of cheapness, availability, usability, quickness, security, integrity, reliability, and transparency). Furthermore, some sociodemographic characteristics (i.e. age, gender, education, income, and place of residence) are explicitly associated with internet skills. Strategy suggestions are concluded for policy making in the respective fields

Rearticulating Internet Literacy

As a simple explanation, Internet literacy is a capability constitutive to utilizing the advantages of the Internet. But, due to the constant changes of digital technologies, what kinds of necessary capabilities are required to gain the advantages? In fact, more than focusing on the essential capabilities to benefit users from the Internet advantages, existing perceptions of Internet literacy have caused the misuse of large digital companies from users’ abilities. Due to the increasing importance of data economics, privacy, and cybersecurity, a critical review of Internet literacy has become a necessity. Based on the emerging of such new critical features of internet environment, this paper proposes a new articulation of Internet literacy. Following a review and analysis of the existing notions and classifications of Internet literacy and using grounded theory method, the article concludes by suggesting a rearticulated version of Internet literacy. The new classification is established based on the 3 main components including responsibility, productivity, and interactivity; 9 main categories, and 43 subcategories. The four critical, analytical, operational, and informational crossover components are also taken into account