INVESTIGACIONES / RESEARCH

Received: 12-02-2013 / Reviewed: 23-06-2013

Accepted: 01-08-2013 / / Preprint: 15-11-2013
Published: 01-01-2014 / RECYT Code: 22486
l A.Y.L. Lee & C.Y.K. So
Hong Kong (China) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3916/C42-2014-13

Media Literacy and Information Literacy:

Similarities and Differences
Alfabetización mediática y alfabetización informacional: similitudes y diferencias

ABSTRACT
In knowledge society, there is currently a call for cultivating a combination of media literacy and information literacy.
This, however, requires cooperation from these two separate fields of study, and uncertainty regarding their boun-
daries hinders a smooth merger. It is unclear whether they are subsets of each other or separate entities. In this study,
we have explored the relationship between these two fields by empirically mapping out their territories and discus-
sing their similarities and differences. We have made use of the Web of Science database to delineate the content
and boundary of these two fields. Our findings from 1956 to 2012 show that the two fields have different authors,
university affiliations, and journals; they also differ in terms of academic origin, scope, and social concern.
Information literacy has a closer tie to library science, while media literacy is more related to media content, media
industry, and social effects. Due to their different academic orientations, the two fields adopt different analytical
approaches. We have found that media literacy is not a subset of information literacy as some scholars have sugges-
ted, although the two fields have similarities. They share the same goal, and their publications overlap in terms of
subject areas, countries of origin, and titles. The two fields could find common ground by cooperating together to
contribute to the promotion of new literacy in knowledge societies.

RESUMEN
En la sociedad del conocimiento presenciamos la necesidad de plantear una combinación de alfabetización mediá-
tica e informativa que requiere, sin embargo, cooperación entre estas dos áreas de estudio independientes. La incer-
tidumbre que rodea estos vínculos dificulta una fusión homogénea, y no resulta fácil determinar si, cuando hablamos
de estas alfabetizaciones, nos referimos a subcategorías o entidades independientes. En este estudio hemos explora-
do la relación existente entre estas dos áreas de estudio determinando empíricamente sus territorios atendiendo a sus
similitudes y diferencias. Para ello, hemos empleado la base de datos bibliográfica Web of Science, con el objetivo
de delinear el contenido y los nexos comunes a ambos campos. Los hallazgos realizados entre 1956 y 2012 muestran
cómo en cada ámbito se desarrollan distintos autores, afiliaciones universitarias y revistas; asimismo, también difieren
en términos de origen académico, alcance e interés social. Mientras que la alfabetización informacional tiene una
relación más estrecha con la biblioteconomía, la alfabetización mediática está más conectada con el contenido
mediático, la industria de los medios y los efectos sociales que éstos causan. Debido a estas diferencias de orientación
académica, ambos campos adoptan enfoques analíticos diferentes. En contra de lo sugerido por algunos expertos,
hemos podido determinar que la alfabetización mediática no es una simple categoría de la alfabetización informa-
cional, a pesar de que ambos campos muestran similitudes: comparten el mismo objetivo, y sus publicaciones se sola-
pan en áreas temáticas, países de origen y títulos. Ambas disciplinas podrían identificar contextos comunes cooperando
conjuntamente para contribuir a la promoción de nuevas alfabetizaciones en las sociedades del conocimiento.

KEYWORDS / DESCRIPTORES
Media literacy, information literacy, communication technology skills, knowledge society, Web of Science, boundary work.
Alfabetización mediática, alfabetización informacional, destrezas informativas, Web of Science, delimitación.

v Dr. Alice Y.L. Lee is Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism at the Hong Kong Baptist University
(Hong Kong) (China) (alicelee@hkbu.edu.hk).
v Dr. Clement Y.K. So is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University
of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) (China) (clementso@cuhk.edu.hk).

Comunicar, n. 42, v. XXI, 2014, Media Education Research Journal; ISSN: 1134-3478; pages 137-145
www.revistacomunicar.com
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1. Introduction Information Literacy Indicators», Catts and Lau (2008)

Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

The 21st century has so far been a time of rapid conclude that information literacy is the ability of an
change. Many countries are gradually shifting from individual to 1) recognize their information needs; 2)
industrial societies to knowledge societies, and this locate and evaluate the quality of information; 3) store
transition brings with it significant social transforma- and retrieve information; 4) make effective and ethical
tions. In this new era, people need nontraditional use of information; 5) apply information to create and
competencies and skills to cope with the changing communicate knowledge.
social and technological environments. Led by UNES- Although media literacy and information literacy
CO, a new literacy movement to promote media and look like two separate fields, both concepts share the
information literacy (MIL) has been launched. The common goal of cultivating people’s ability to access,
purpose of the movement is to bring the fields of infor- understand, use, and create media messages or infor-
mation literacy and media literacy together as a combi- mation. In the literacy family, they have always been
ned set of competencies necessary for life and work seen as being closely linked. When the world entered
today (UNESCO, 2012). However, an ambiguous the Internet age, the boundary between them became
understanding of the boundaries and territories of further blurred by digital technologies. Literacy
these two fields makes cooperation somewhat challen- actually has a symbiotic relationship with communica-
ging. It seems that the professionals in both fields do tion technology. When computer technology con-
not have a full understanding of each other and have verged with media technology in the 1990s, which
failed to establish a commonality. As a consequence, was referred to by Koelsch (1995) as the infomedia
they have not been satisfactorily merged (Badke, revolution, there was already a call for expanding the
2009). concept of media literacy to encompass infomedia lite-
Media literacy has a long history, but its rapid racy (Lee, 1999). As the Internet further advances,
development has only been noted in the past two people need to acquire the skills and competencies of
decades. Over time, it has been framed in different multiple literacies (Buckingham, 2007; Westby,
ways (Brown, 1998; Potter, 2010). In Canada, media 2010). Various concepts, such as multiliteracies (New
education is defined as «the process through which London Group, 1996) and multimodality (Kress,
individuals become media literate – able to critically 2003), have been proposed to address this need.
understand the nature, techniques and impacts of
media messages and productions» (Media Literacy 2. Different views on the relationship between the
Week, 2010: 1). In the United Kingdom, media lite- two fields
racy is defined by Ofcom (2010: 1) as «the ability to The development of digital technology is a key
access, understand and create communications in a factor for combining media literacy and information
variety of context». Media literacy is considered to be literacy. In the Internet age, it is no longer adequate for
a series of communication competencies, including the librarians to offer a static set of indices and search
ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate tools. They need to be able to competently use the
information in a variety of forms (Lee, 2010; NAMLE, latest information technologies and to adopt a critical
2010). Although these definitions look different, they approach in handling information in libraries and
address similar purposes, including critically engaging beyond (Mitrano & Peterson, 2012). Therefore, infor-
with media messages and increasing the ability to mation literacy experts are aware of the need to reach
access, understand, analyze, use, and create media out to the media world and to pay more attention to
products. the critical analytical skills of media literacy. On the
Different definitions of information literacy have media literacy side, while facing the vast amount of
also been proposed. For example, a study group for information in the digital age, these practitioners also
the National Forum on Information Literacy defines recognize the importance of utilizing information lite-
information literacy as the ability to access, evaluate, racy skills for searching, evaluating, and organizing
and use information from a variety of sources; this information.
group has also developed a series of outcome measu- Many academics and educators around the world
res. The Information Literary Group at the University are making efforts to draw media literacy and informa-
of Calgary describes information literacy as «the ability tion literacy together. However, in order to success-
to recognize the need for information and knowing fully integrate the two concepts, people from the two
how to access, evaluate, synthesize and communicate sides need to understand each other well and know
it» (Moeller & al., 2011: 32). In UNESCO’s «Towards how to complement each other. However, to date,

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different views of their relationship have hindered fields, although both sides recognize the need for con-

Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

substantial cooperation between the two fields. Two vergence. Badke (2009: 48) warned about «the dan-
contrasting perspectives about their relationship have ger of living in silos», saying that separation is a hurdle
frequently been mentioned: «On the one hand, infor- that these literacies must overcome so that they can
mation literacy sees media education as a subset of its play a foundational role in today’s education. Koltay
broader tenets. On the other hand, media literacy con- (2011) also comments that media literacy has to find its
ceptualizes information as a subcategory of its broader essential role in education as one aspect of some kind
spectrum of concerns» (Grizzle, 2010; Gutierrez & of multiple or multimodal literacy.
Tyner, 2012: 34). While UNESCO is seeking to promote media and
In fact, many academics from the library science information literacy around the world, a few studies
field regard information literacy as an umbrella con- have tried to address the dichotomy between the sepa-
cept that encompasses media literacy (Boekhorst, rate fields of information literacy and media literacy.
2012; Kurbanoglu 2012). While Abid (2004) and Lau (2013) argues that both concepts aim at facilitating
McClure (1994) point out that media literacy is a the development of information skills. The difference
major element of information literacy, some others between them is in the information objects that they
propose that media messages are part of the broader focus on, as one concentrates on mass media messa-
term of information. While conducting a detailed ges, while the other focuses on information in general.
review of the concept of information literacy and Carbo (2013: 97-99) proposes the use of «metalite-
media literacy, Bawden (2001: 6) found that many racy» as a bigger umbrella to bring together the many
authors in the field of information literacy «prefer to different competencies needed in the new society.
see media literacy as a component of information lite- Information literacy is central to this theoretical cons-
racy». Badke (2009: 47) has described three move- truct, which includes media and other literacies as
ments (media literacy, information and communication components. While these two articles adopt a qualita-
technologies, and information literacy) as moving tive approach and information science perspective to
toward a point of convergence; he states, «I see the discuss the specifications of the two concepts,
information literacy movement as the best contender Gendina (2013: 119) found that in Russia and the
to draw together the other literacy movement into a Commonwealth of Independent States «information
single emphasis». literacy and media education develop in silos, hardly
In Ofcom’s adult media literacy report, Living- interacting with one another». The boundary dispute
stone, Couvering and Thumim (2005: 16) state that between two fields remains unsettled.
«media literacy sees media as a lens through which to The objective of this study is to investigate the rela-
view the world and express oneself, while information tionship between information literacy and media lite-
literacy sees information as a tool with which to act on racy. In sum, there are three competing views: 1)
the world» and that «both perspectives are relevant for Media literacy and information literacy are basically
developing media literacy policy». In the report, infor- different; 2) media literacy and information literacy are
mation literacy was brought to be discussed under the not the same but do have some overlaps; 3) and media
domain of media literacy. With regard to meeting the literacy is just a subset of information literacy. Through
challenges of the Internet age, Hobbs (2010: 23) pro- investigating empirical data, we have sought to deter-
poses the concept of digital and media literacy and mine which of these views is closest to reality.
includes «using information search and evaluation stra-
tegies» in her proposed curriculum outline. These 3. Research method
scholars consider information literacy to be a useful In the academic world, there are established crite-
tool of media literacy, and some experts just do not ria for evaluating a discipline or a field of study. Heck-
agree that media literacy is a subset of information lite- hausen (1972) distinguishes between disciplines by
racy. To them, although a media message is a kind of applying seven different criteria: its set of objectives,
information, media literacy does not only deal with subject matter, level of theoretical integration, met-
media content, but also encompasses a large number hods, analytical tools, applications, and historical con-
of media institutions and the whole communication tingencies. So (1995) has delineated a particular disci-
industry, which are not covered by information lite- pline according to its constituting members, institu-
racy. tions, theoretical approaches, stock of knowledge, sub-
Apparently, a consensus has not been reached ject matter, and group identity. A field of study is
regarding the boundaries and territories of these two usually defined by the presence of certain subject mat-

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140

ter but not by the existence of certain theoretical ele- ted to «media». The ratio was about 1.6 to 1. Between
Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

ments. By adopting these criteria for evaluating a disci- «information literacy» and «media literacy», the speci-
pline/field of study, we have compared media literacy fic ratio of documents found was about 3.2 to 1,
and information literacy by empirically examining which is even larger.
several aspects, including their patterns of develop-
ment, academic origins, journals, constituting mem- 4. The landscapes of information literacy and
bers, institutions, and subject matter. media literacy
In this study, we have made use of the Web of Information literacy is an area that is receiving
Science database, which includes about 12,000 jour- increasing attention in academia. Before the 1990s,
nals, 150,000 conference proceedings, and more than there were very few studies about this topic, and by
47 million documents from 250 fields. It is widely 1994, it still only accounted for 3.4% of the total docu-
recognized, authoritative, and easily accessible. To be ments. Research in this area slowly began to increase,
as inclusive as possible, we chose to use all document and between 1995 and 2004, the share rose to 22.4%.
types from all three indices and from all possible years. This interest has continued to grow; from 2005
The exact date of data collection was February 2, onwards, the topic of information literacy accounted
2013. We searched the database by topic instead of for 73.8% of the documents in the Web of Science
title, as the former is more inclusive and is not limited database.
by specific title words. We looked at the key words of In terms of the subject areas of the information lite-
«information literacy» and «media literacy» from 1956 racy articles, information science and library science
to 2012 to determine what territory each concept are the most popular topics at 54.2% (see Table 1).
would empirically reveal. Specifically, we gathered Two closely related areas are computer science
information about various descriptors, including: 1) the (16.8%) and education and educational research
size of the territories; 2) the years in which the docu- (11.1%). The other topics vary, and each comprises a
ments were published in order to see the trend; 3) the very small percentage of the overall content area. So it
subject areas involved; 4) the journals in which the is obvious that this information literacy is unmistakably
documents were published; 5) the countries of origin; situated in the areas of information science and library
6) the authors; 7) the institutions; 8) the words used in science. Among the top 13 journals shown in Table 2,
the document titles. all of them are in the field of library and information
The term «information» generated 1,451,947 science. The Journal of Academic Librarianship
document items. The term «media» generated stands out as the most important publication outlet.
912,069 items. In contrast, «literacy» only produced Table 3 shows the top 24 authors in the field of
25,706 items as it is more specific in focus. For the information literacy. Heidi Julien, Maria Pinto, and
combination of information and literacy (i.e., the terms Christine Bruce are the top three authors on the list.
were not necessarily adjacent to each other or formed Table 4 is a list of the top institutions involved in infor-
a single concept), there
were 4,803 items in
the database. Using
lemmatization and a
more restricted search,
the term «information
literacy» generated
1,501 items. Similarly,
for media and literacy,
there were 1,468
items, but for «media
literacy», there were
only 467 items. From
the above numbers, it
is clear that the fields
related to «informa-
tion» are larger in
scope than those rela-

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mation literacy research. Researchers from the ted to technology (online, web, technology, digital,

Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

University of Alberta and the University of Illinois head and Internet). It is worth noting that the word «media»
the list. Among the 18 institutions analyzed, 9 are from is not on this list.
the United States and the rest are from 6 other coun- The concept of media literacy began to be addres-
tries. As expected, the United States has produced the sed in the documents in the Web of Science database
lion’s share of the documents in information literacy at beginning in 1995, and this focus has grown steadily
40.6%. England (7.7%) and Australia (6.9%) take the ever since. Before 1995, its share of the database was
second and third spots, respectively, followed by only 3%, but this percentage jumped to 26.2% betwe-
Canada (5.3%) and China (4.7%). Among the 17 en 1995 and 2004. Interest in media literacy has con-
countries and territories currently researching informa- tinued to rapidly develop in the past few years. From
tion literacy, most of them are in North America, 2005 and onwards, it has accounted for 70.9% of the
Europe, and East Asia. total documents.
The use of certain words in the document titles There is no single dominant area in media literacy.
can reveal the research foci in information literacy stu- The top three research areas are education and educa-
dies. When counting the words that appeared in all tional research (25.7%), communication (19.1%), and
the documents, we found that «information» (N= psychology (11.6%). The other fields, as shown in
1,173) and «literacy/literacies» (N=937) were the top Table 1, include other social sciences, health and infor-
two words. The rest of the frequently used words mation, and library science. Table 2 shows the various
help to illuminate the focus of information literacy journals that publish media literacy articles. Comunicar is
research. Table 5 shows that there are three groups of the top journal (N = 47), followed by American
words. The first group is related to library science Behavioral Scientist (N=24). For the rest of the journals,
(e.g., library and librarian). The second group is rela- there are two major areas of focus—communication and
ted to education (student, learning, education, instruc- health. There are also some «hybrid» journals involving
tion, teaching, university, etc.). The third group is rela- both of these fields, such as Health Communication and

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142

the Journal of Health Communication. mation literacy emerged from the library and informa-
Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

The major authors in media literacy are Brian tion sciences, media literacy originated from the
Primack, Renee Hobbs, and Erica Austin. In terms of media, education, and social sciences. The top three
the institutions most related to media literacy, the journals that carry information literacy publications are
University of California system tops the list, while library journals, while those carrying media literacy
Washington State University is a close second. As publications are communication and social sciences
Table 4 also shows, among the 19 institutions, the journals. Media literacy-related journals tend to have
United States is home to 14 of them. The other coun- higher impact factors, while the library journals are eit-
tries represented include Australia, England, Canada, her non-Social Sciences Citation Index publications or
and Spain. For the origins of the documents, the have lower impact factors (table 2).
United States ranks first with a share of 51.8%. The third aspect is the difference of constituting
England comes second, but its share is only 5.8%. members and institutions. In Table 3, of the 48 au-
Canada, Spain, and Australia are also near the top of thors shown on both lists, only one of them is listed in
the list. North American and European countries are both fields. For the top three authors on each list, they
dominant, but East Asian countries, such as China, do not appear at all on the other list. This level of diver-
Japan, and South Korea, are becoming a rising force. gence is a good indicator that the two fields are being
The title words related to media literacy are investigated by two entirely different groups of resear-
shown in Table 5. The words «media» and «literacy» chers. The institutional affiliations in Table 4 essentially
rank first and second, with 346 and 255 uses, respec- repeat this finding. Of the 37 universities listed on both
tively. Three groups of words were identified: The lists, most of them do not overlap. Of the 18 media lite-
first group had something to do with education (such racy-related universities, 12 are ranked among the top
as education, school, teacher, student, or curriculum), 100 in the 2013 Shanghai Ranking of world universities.
the second group of words was related to communi- Of the 18 information literacy-related universities, the
cation (such as television, effect, communication, corresponding number is only 5.
advertising, news, or Internet), and the third group The fourth aspect is their overlapping scopes and
was health related (such as smoking, eating, preven- subject matters. Education is the common bond bet-
tion, intervention, or risk). Here we
also see the presence of the word
«information».

5. Similarities and differences

We can compare the two fields
in terms of six aspects. The first
aspect is their similar patterns of
development. The two concepts
have developed rather quickly in
recent years. This acceleration is
most obvious in the 2000s, espe-
cially from the year 2005 onwards.
In the past two decades, the two
fields have been young and upco-
ming academic areas in the literacy
family (Google, 2012). As for affilia-
ted countries, the United States is
the most important place for both
information literacy and media lite-
racy research. Other countries that
are active in both areas include
England, Australia, Canada, Spain,
China, and South Africa.
The second aspect is their diffe-
rent academic roots. While infor-

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ween the two fields

Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

(Table 5). This overlap
forms a basis for the pro-
posed integration and
cooperation, but each
field also has its own
emphasis, as can be
seen in their major title
words. In fact, they also
differ in terms of their
targets of study. The
objects of interest for the
information literacy
scholars are mainly
peer-reviewed publica-
tions. For media literacy,
the attention is focused
on mass media and
media messages. In
recent years, they have
both focused on multi-
media material and have
been associated heavily
with information and
communication techno-
logies. There is also an
overlap between the
two fields in terms of
subject area. Both literacy concepts guide users to training people to access, understand, evaluate, com-
meet their information needs through locating, retrie- municate, use, and create media messages and infor-
ving, evaluating, using, and communicating media and mation. Both highlight the importance of the ethical
information. One is more concerned with research use of information, the critical analysis of content, the
skills, while the other is linked with critical analysis of use of multimedia platforms, and knowledge produc-
media products (Hobbs, 2010; Lau, 2013). tion. There is a recent call for information literacy to
The fifth aspect is their divergent analytical ap- extend its functions to build citizenship, to guarantee
proaches. Information literacy concentrates on analy- the survival of democratic institutions, to serve as a
zing information (Lau, 2013). Therefore, it mainly vital tool for lifelong learning, and to address the value
focuses on textual analysis and emphasizes the rese- of relevant information in a commercial world that is
arch value of finding the truth in documents. It is con- driven by a knowledge economy (Bawden, 2001).
cerned with the critical assessment of research-related Media literacy scholars also propose that media lite-
information quality but it does not examine informa- racy should contribute to democracy, the knowledge
tion audience and information effects (Lau, 2013). In economy, and lifelong learning (Livingstone & al.,
contrast, media literacy has strong academic roots in 2005).
media studies and social sciences. It addresses key
facets of the mass media phenomena, such as media 6. Discussion and conclusion
messages, media industries, media audiences, and The empirical findings from the Web of Science
media effects (Martens, 2010). Thus, media literacy database show that there are more differences than
adopts more analytical approaches. Apart from textual similarities between the fields of information literacy
analysis, it also conducts institutional analysis, medium and media literacy. Information literacy is a much lar-
analysis, and audience analysis. ger field than media literacy. It has a clear but narrow
The sixth aspect is their objectives. Information focus on library science and technology. On the other
literacy and media literacy have the same objective – hand, media literacy has a broader scope and is more

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ledge creation. While we recognize their

Comunicar, 42, XXI, 2014

differences, it is not difficult to find that the

two fields are, in fact, linked and comple-
mentary.
The experts in these two fields should
seek to learn from each other and to under-
stand the specifics of the other field. In
today’s world, neither information literacy
nor media literacy alone is sufficient to equip
individuals to deal with the huge volume of
media messages and the abundance of infor-
mation platforms. There is an urgent call to
combine these two fields to develop a joint
set of media and information literacy compe-
tencies needed in the new technological
environment. Their integration could cer-
tainly facilitate individuals’ participation in
the emerging knowledge societies.

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