Building Resilience to Misinformation: A Cross-National Development of the Digital Media and Information Literacy Scale (DMILS)

2026-05-17

AI Summary

This study addresses the current lack of concise, reliable, and cross-culturally comparable instruments for assessing the public’s capacity to identify and respond to misinformation in digital media environments. To bridge this gap, the authors developed the Digital Media and Information Literacy Scale (DMILS), which uniquely integrates subjective self-reports with objective knowledge items while distinguishing between digital and news information domains as well as knowledge and skill dimensions. Drawing on large-scale samples from the United States and Singapore (N = 1,498), the scale underwent rigorous psychometric validation, including assessments of structural and predictive validity. The resulting full version comprises 18 self-report and 16 objective items, alongside a validated short form with 8 + 8 items. The DMILS demonstrates strong reliability and validity, offering a robust tool for evaluating and comparing media literacy interventions across national contexts.

Abstract

Amid growing concern about information quality and credibility in digital media environments, researchers and educators still lack a concise, comprehensive yet psychometrically sound instrument for tracking the competencies that help people navigate this landscape. This article develops the Digital Media and Information Literacy Scale (DMILS), a robust and multidimensional measure that distinguishes domain (digital vs. information/news), competency type (knowledge vs. skill), and is measured through both subjective and objective items. Through two empirical studies with three nationally matched samples in the United States and Singapore (N = 1,498), we developed an 18-item self-report battery and 16-item objective knowledge questions, showing strong structural, convergent, and predictive validity, along with a short form (8 self-report and 8 objective items). By offering a parsimonious yet multidimensional yardstick, DMILS enables rigorous evaluation of media literacy interventions and supplies a common metric for cross-national research, critical for building an information ecosystem resilient to mis- and disinformation.

Problem

• misinformation
• digital media literacy
• information literacy
• psychometric instrument
• cross-national research

Innovation

• Digital Media and Information Literacy Scale
• psychometric validation
• cross-national comparison
• multidimensional assessment
• misinformation resilience