Technology, Education and Critical Media Literacy: Potential, Challenges, and Opportunities

Synthesis: Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with seven leading experts in critical media literacy and a survey of 141 university students in Communication and Education programs, this study finds that while technology offers real opportunities for teaching and learning, its inclusion in the curriculum is limited and often superficial. Teachers are under-trained to manage tools that produce disinformation, deepfakes, and fake news, which hinders students' Critical Thinking. The authors argue for a Critical Pedagogy-grounded critical media literacy that lets students question and evaluate content within an ethical, reflective framework promoting participatory and critical citizenship — positioning educommunication not merely as tool use but as a politically engaged, dialogic practice.

Key Findings

1. Superficial curriculum integration. Recent technological advances (including Generative AI content and deepfakes) create challenges for information consumption, yet their inclusion in educational curricula is limited and often shallow — often reduced to device and software use without a reflective, critical approach.
2. Teacher training gap. Teachers are inadequately trained to manage these tools effectively, which directly hinders the development of students' Critical Thinking. Institutional priorities favor technological and instructional skills over media education.
3. Critical media literacy as the remedy. Students and experts agree the goal should be a critical media literacy that goes beyond tool use to help learners question and evaluate the content they consume, within an ethical and reflective framework that promotes participatory and critical citizenship.
4. Low conceptual awareness among students. While 97.8% of surveyed students recognize the importance of tools for critical media analysis, only 13.8% say these skills were addressed in their coursework; only 2.13% were familiar with all three of media education, media literacy, and educommunication.
5. Self-assessed competence lags perceived importance. Just under half of students (44.9%) feel they have the skills to critically analyze media information, and 45.7% feel ready to work with media content — a gap between the high value placed on these skills and actual readiness.
6. Media literacy as an experiential process. More frequent and more diverse media consumption correlates with higher perceived critical competence, suggesting critical skills also develop through meaningful everyday media engagement beyond formal education.

Background and Research Questions

The integration of technology into education has been a catalyst for profound transformations in teaching and learning, accelerating sharply with the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive adoption of digital technologies. Beyond advantages such as interactivity and personalization, this rapid adoption introduced new challenges — most notably a lack of training for both teachers and students that reveals an urgent need to develop digital and informational competencies for navigating an information-rich environment critically and reflectively.

The study situates itself within the tradition of educommunication, a field rooted in the work of popular educators such as Kaplún, Freire, and Martín-Barbero, who built critical pedagogies centered on dialog and the interrelation between education and communication as tools for social transformation. Within this frame, media literacy is understood as "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms" (Livingstone, 2004), extended toward the goal of educating citizens to use information critically.

Artificial intelligence has emerged as a prominent new element in this landscape, with potential to personalize education but requiring an ethical and reflective framework to ensure proper training, AI Regulation in Education, and trust. The authors argue that AI implementation must be aligned with a critical media literacy approach so students not only use such technologies to their advantage but also understand their implications and associated risks. The study poses four research questions examining the current role of Critical Thinking in media and information literacy, the educational challenges of technological transformation, the appropriate role of technology in the classroom, and how future educators and journalists perceive their media habits and competencies.

Methods

The study employs a mixed-methods approach integrating qualitative and quantitative techniques. Seven semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with leading scholars of educommunication and media literacy from geographically diverse institutions — three from US universities (UCLA and Temple University), one from a Latin American university (University of Lima), and three from Spanish universities (University of Huelva, University of Valladolid, and European Atlantic University). Interviews were conducted online between May 2023 and April 2024, structured by theoretical saturation and analyzed using NVIVO coding.

A survey was administered in person to 141 students enrolled in Journalism, Social Education, Early Childhood Education, and Primary Education programs at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), collecting data on media consumption habits, perceptions, and self-assessed media literacy competencies. The qualitative expert data enrich the survey findings with interpretive depth and pedagogical perspectives drawn from diverse cultural and institutional contexts.

Findings

Critical thinking and media and information literacy

The results show broad consensus among experts on treating critical thinking and media and information literacy as essential competencies for an environment permeated by technology. Experts stress that media literacy alone is insufficient without a solid foundation of critical thinking — the goal is a "critical lens" on all consumed media. Some experts framed critical educommunication as a politically grounded pedagogical tool that strengthens democracy by addressing gender, race, class, and power, promoting participatory citizenship and social transformation. Critical dialog emerged as a key educommunicative tool for co-constructing knowledge in participatory learning environments.

The impact of technological transformations

Technology's omnipresence extends "into our bedroom, into our intimate life," yet the absence of a strong scientific and technological culture often leads to superficial integration. Experts argue that critical media literacy remains insufficiently integrated into educational curricula, leaving students exposed to media overexposure, misinformation, and uncritical content consumption. One expert highlighted that technology's impacts also vary with broader social factors: in contexts lacking support networks or financial resources, media may fill emotional or social voids, increasing the risk of excessive reliance.

Use and management of the internet in the classroom

There is broad consensus on the growing spread of fake news, disinformation, and incidentally received information, especially through social media and algorithm-driven platforms. Experts link the absence of critical media literacy to growing societal polarization, as students without such skills may adopt unexamined viewpoints within ideological bubbles. AI and deepfakes add a new level of complexity, making it harder to distinguish reality from misinformation. Strategies such as the Critical Media Literacy Framework (Kellner and Share), the dialogic-critical method, and critical pedagogies were highlighted as key approaches. Experts also criticized dependence on imported technologies and the superficial fascination of some teachers who adopt tools without understanding them.

Discussion

The survey data reveal a clear paradox: students overwhelmingly recognize the importance of critical media skills but lack both conceptual exposure and self-assessed readiness. Notably, 52.2% of students believe the media influence opinion formation in a negative way, indicating a broadly critical stance among young people. Trust in media varies by format, with audio and print formats perceived more favorably than digital platforms — reflecting critical awareness of the fast-paced, sometimes unreliable nature of social and internet environments.

Critically, the data suggest that media literacy develops not only as a pedagogical objective but as an experiential process grounded in real-world media interaction. The correlation between more frequent and diverse media consumption and higher perceived critical competence suggests that meaningful engagement outside formal education reinforces what is taught within it. This supports an approach to media literacy as both a structured curriculum goal and a lived practice.

The study also underscores that digital inequity is a central concern: structural and digital disparities, disproportionately affecting low-income populations, rural communities, and the Global South, restrict access to knowledge and limit the ability to become active and critical media users. Media literacy education must therefore move beyond a one-size-fits-all model and be grounded in the specific financial, cultural, and regional contexts of learners.

What this means for practice

• Instructors. Teach provenance, manipulation, and credibility evaluation as the core of media education rather than an add-on to device and software training; the experts in this study treat media literacy without a foundation in critical thinking as insufficient.
• Instructors. Run media analysis on the platforms and formats students already use, since more frequent and diverse media consumption correlated with higher perceived critical competence.
• Instructors. Use the dialogic-critical method and established frameworks such as Kellner and Share's Critical Media Literacy Framework to have students question content within an ethical, reflective framing tied to participatory citizenship.
• Administrators. Rebalance teacher training so media education and critical thinking sit alongside technical and instructional skills: 97.8% of surveyed students recognized the tools' importance for critical analysis, but only 13.8% said these skills were addressed in their coursework.
• Administrators. Target resources at digital inequity rather than a one-size-fits-all program, because structural and digital disparities affecting low-income, rural, and Global South learners restrict who can become an active and critical media user.

Limitations

• The qualitative component draws on just seven semi-structured expert interviews, all with scholars based in Spain, Latin America, and the United States.
• The survey covers 141 students at a single institution, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), enrolled in Journalism, Social Education, Early Childhood Education, and Primary Education programs, which the authors say limits the generalizability of the findings.
• The cross-sectional design provides only a snapshot of current perceptions and cannot capture how views and competencies evolve over time.
• Readiness figures are self-assessed — 44.9% feeling able to analyze media information critically — so they measure perceived competence rather than demonstrated skill.

Citation

Santos-Albardía, M., Peña-Fernández, S., & Agirreazkuenaga, I. (2025). Technology, education and critical media literacy: potential, challenges, and opportunities. Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 7, 1608911.