Developing news literacy curricula in the age of social media in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Myanmar

Abstract

This paper comparatively analyzes the pat- terns of social media usage among the students in news literacy-related courses in three Asian countries and ex- plores how news literacy educators have incorporated, or should incorporate in the future, their students’ digital news habits into their curricula under the di erent socio- cultural and political environment. It speci cally focuses on the degree of press freedom and the roles of social media platforms in news distribution and sharing in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Myanmar. By cross-examining the distinctive characteristics of educational circumstances under 1) the relatively free media ecology in Hong Kong, 2) the heavily restricted media environment in Vietnam, and 3) the transitional and volatile press conditions in Myanmar, the study identi es common patterns of news consumption across the borders and discuss how the re- gion-speci c issues need to be pedagogically integrated into the development and modi cation of news literacy curricula.