Ethical, Legal, and Social Factors in Vitagen Education: Shaping Media Mentality and Critical Competencies of University Students

Abstract

This paper presents a Central Asia–oriented model, developed towards the concept of vitagen-ed, to develop “media mentality” and critical capacities among university students through the incorporation of ELSI (ethical-legal-social) factors in the field. Building on vitagen and in line with recent policy and evidence throughout Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), we discuss how media and information literacy (MIL) reformations, data privacy laws and academic integrity campaigns can be translated into classroom practice. Despite growing digitalization and policy-level commitments, there remains a lack of empirically grounded, classroom-level models that systematically integrate ethical, legal, and social dimensions into media education in Central Asian higher education. We synthesize UNESCO/OECD outputs and regional reports (2020–2025) to foreground four recurring gaps: (i) uneven MIL infusion in higher education curricula; (ii) inconsistent enforcement of personal data and privacy compliance by EdTech providers; (iii) nascent but patchy academic integrity cultural norms; and (iv) insufficient embrace of student lifeworld’s (vitagen) for critical media reasoning. We present the V-MIND model (Vitagen-driven MIL integrated Integrity-centered Norms-compliant Data-ethical) and a pilot approach with treatment and control groups that can practically implement vitagen tasks such as narratives, case-based MIL labs, and data-ethics clinics. Intended results are the enhancement of source evaluation, legal/ethical use of personal data, and critical disempowerment through validated rubrics congruent to UNESCO MIL modules and national legislation. The methodological approach enables systematic measurement of changes in critical media analysis, ethical reasoning in AI-mediated contexts, and privacy self-efficacy among university student. We describe the feasibility of enactment under current legal framework (such as, data protection and education laws in Uzbekistan), pathways for teacher development, and institutional governance. The article ends with some hypotheses to be tested and a multi-campus trial implementation plan. By linking vitagen pedagogy with ELSI-compliant media education, this study contributes a scalable and context-sensitive model that bridges policy aspirations and classroom practice, offering practical implications for curriculum design, educator training, and digital governance in Central Asian universities. This contribution connects historical vitagen pedagogy with current ELSI imperatives by providing locally anchored pathway to scaling media-mindset and critical competence development in universities of Central Asian region.