What Do We See, How Do We Believe, and Why Do We Judge?
In an era where AI produces content, media literacy is no longer simply "the ability to read information." It has expanded to a philosophical question: how do we accept reality as reality, what do we recognize as knowledge, and by what standards do we make judgments? Generative AI''s transformation is not just technological progress but is shaking the very way humans understand the world. Three ontological-epistemological-axiological transformations: (1) Ontological shift — "Does what AI creates exist?" In a social constructivist view, reality is constructed not from data itself but through interpretation and interaction; the premise "information exists" transitions to "information is constructed"; (2) Epistemological shift — what do we recognize as knowledge? Generative AI produces probabilistic language and provides different answers to the same question, blurring the boundary between truth and generated output; interpretivism emerges as a core methodology — meaning, context, and user experience become central to knowledge understanding; AI is not a neutral tool but a product of specific corporations, platforms, and power structures; (3) Axiological shift — AI-generated content raises the question of evaluation standards; when AI produces content, the traditional judgment criteria of "who made it, with what intention, through what process" no longer apply straightforwardly. Practical implications for media literacy in the AI era: verification skills (evaluating source authority and factual accuracy); platform literacy (understanding recommendation algorithms and filter bubbles); production literacy (recognizing that AI-generated content follows different truth criteria than human-authored content); ethical literacy (understanding when AI use is appropriate and when it's problematic). The philosophical grounding: Giddens''s structuration theory applies — humans and AI mutually constitute the information environment, and literacy in this environment requires understanding that dynamic rather than assuming a fixed external reality we simply access or miss.
