Media literacy and informal learning in Latin America: literature review

Abstract

In recent decades, technologies have developed at an increasing and accelerated pace that has transformed society in multiple ways, thus, efforts to educate citizens in the necessary competencies to face technological challenges and interact in communication scenarios have not been delayed, especially in regions such as Latin America, where socio-economic inequalities tend to increase the lag of certain groups towards these new contexts. This work presents the results of a literature review on media literacy and informal learning in Latin America, carried out on publications from 2012-2022 in the Web of Science database, from which a qualitative sample of 28 articles was analyzed using Atlas.ti 9, which generated 13 codes and 128 citations that allow for an approach to the authors’ vision of the various articles on media literacy and its relationship of complementarity with media education. Additionally, the way in which concepts such as informal learning, citizenship, and digital and social gaps highlight the importance of media literacy and the media competencies are analyzed. According to the studies analyzed, it is concluded that media literacy should be a permanent process in which the various social institutions contribute and where informal learning is an important opportunity for the development of certain competencies.