Media Literacy Research: A Systematic Review of Media Literacy Studies in Iran

Discussions around media literacy in the world have been very prevalent for almost three past decades. In parallel with the world, Iranian scholars showed enthusiasm towards conducting research on media literacy. Media literacy has been defined in a variety of ways. As an illustration, the notion, has been defined as “a critical-thinking skill that enables audiences to decipher the information that they receive through the channels of mass communications and empowers them to develop independent judgments about media content” (Siverblatt & Eliceiri, ۱۹۹۷, p. ۴۸). In another way, it has been defined as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a variety of forms” (Hobbd, ۲۰۰۱, p.۷). After passing around two decades of studies around media literacy in Iran, it is worthwhile to evaluate the most important issues that have been investigated around this topic. This study has conducted a systematic review of media literacy studies in Iran to explore the gaps in the existing literature. In doing so, search with the keywords, ‘media literacy’, ‘internet literacy’ and ‘digital literacy’ has been done in the ‘Scientific Information Database’ (SID). Altogether, ۱۴۰ articles were found, out of them ۱۳۳ focused on media literacy issues, ۵ articles focused on digital literacy and only ۲ was about internet literacy. Thematic analysis of the gathered sample showed that they were mainly focused on ۱۰ important issues. The recognized themes that received the top priorities include ‘investigating the extent or the effects of media literacy among a particular group in society’, ‘effects, benefits and advantages of media literacy’, ‘education and media literacy’ and ‘defining the concept of media literacy and its dimensions’. The themes that received less attention from the scholars were ‘evaluating the media literacy concept’, ‘factors affecting media literacy’, ‘media literacy and policy making’, ‘operationalization of the media literacy concept’, ‘comparative studies with other countries’ and miscellaneous. According to the results of the study, it is suggested that further studies can focus on more unexplored aspects of media literacy such as media literacy and policy making and considering media literacy in the age of social media with particular focus on the management of fake news, false information, misinformation and disinformation.

Keywords:

media literacy , policy making , Iran , social media , fake news