Fake News & Media Literacy (Blog Post 2)
The podcast this week, Fake News & Media Literacy, was fascinating. I am familiar with the concept of ‘fake news’, as I’m sure we all are, but had not considered some of the obvious markers of what constitutes fake news. For instance, we all are familiar with our social media profiles serving as a tunnel for our particular beliefs – often we have connections with people who generally share the same beliefs, so, for instance, the political portion of my Facebook feed is essentially a string of connections sharing political information that I already agree with. One incredibly important thing that was mentioned in the podcast is, if I am immediately emotionally charged from reading something, it is likely that I need to look into it carefully to be sure it is a reliable source. Similarly, if the statement being made is a big one - ‘this changes the way we look at human health’ - or something equally big, I likely need to reconsider immediately assuming it is true. This is often the case with the political meme-like postings that you will see on social media. Sometimes the ‘statistics’ being listed seem virtually impossible, and it is clearly intended to get those that agree with it to be incensed, and those that don’t to be equally incensed! The podcast emphasizes these points in clear (and amusing) ways.
The ACRL provides a more detailed framework for helping the researcher, undergraduate, etc. determine which source are reliable, and in which situations various sources may be considered reliable. One great point the ACRL makes is that the students must “acknowledge that they are developing their own authoritative voices in a particular area and recognize the responsibility this entails” (ACRL, 2016, p. 13). This is something that we perhaps typically don’t think about as students. We may (hopefully) focus on the need to locate and assess sources, but don’t think about the fact that we are becoming an authority in our subject field, particularly given that we will be working with students. It is our responsibility to not only ensure that the sources we reference and use for our own research and intellectual curiosity are reliable sources, but that we are serving as a reliable source for the students we work with and the information literacy community as a whole.
Specifically, I think that a school librarian needs to read widely. Certainly, reading novels or other texts that relate to the age range she is working with, but also keeping abreast of hot-button topics and reading articles from the perspective of both sides of the topic. We all have a tendency to want to read what we agree with (and social media only inflames this tendency), but I think we have a responsibility to understand both sides of an argument and use reliable sources to evaluate the issue at hand. It is also helpful for the information professional to (objectively) read some of the fake news and/or inflammatory news sources. Being aware of both the fake news regarding an issue and the reliable news regarding an issue will allow the librarian to serve as a true authority for helping students to research and learn how to evaluate sources themselves.
References
American Library Association. (2015, February 9). Framework for information literacy for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
Gungor, M., & McHargue, M., & Matthews, W. (2017, March 7). Fake news & media literacy. The Liturgists. Podcast retrieved from https://theliturgists.com/podcast/2017/3/7/fake-news-media-literacy
Hi Libby,
ReplyDeleteYou addressed the fact that students need to be able to critique information sources for reliability, but also addressed our responsibility as librarians to be a reliable source for students. As information consumers, I agree that we not only need to be able to assess the information we use, but also be able to responsibly teach students how to critique sources for reliability. While many librarians are also tasked with teaching technology in schools today, this provides a great avenue for teaching kids necessary skills to critique sources. I also think it would be a great idea to provide teachers with a training session on assessing sources, as well as provide them kid-friendly resources for reinforcing these skills in the classroom as many school have 1:1 technology. Some of the resources shared in module 3 would be great to share with teachers, as well.
Best,
Shanon Ashley
Shanon, you make a great point about the need to help teachers to assess sources and giving them ways to reinforce what we teach in the library - in SLIS 742 we are focusing on some of those ideas right now, and ways that the librarian can help the teacher.
DeleteLibby,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! I also enjoyed "The Liturgists" podcast. There was so much to take away from our hosts. You brought up a great point in that the more emotionally charged we feel about a topic or the bigger the statement, the more we need to be skeptical of the information. Listening to our hosts talk about the way they processed information was extremely interesting. Along with reading widely, I believe that librarians should refine the way they take in information. Too often I have taken spoken word as fact without looking at source or context. The call for us to be more skeptical and follow the information trail was excellent!
Best,
Rachelle Swearingen
Rachelle, your term the 'information trail' is a great one!! I'm going to use that constantly from now on, I hope you don't mind!
DeleteLibby,
ReplyDeleteI love what you said about us having a responsibility to understand both sides of an argument. We've all had that experience of a student asking us about some hot-button issue, and I'll admit, I usually deflect. I remember, once a student asked me what "communism" was. Knowing this could be pretty divisive I told them to ask their parents. I didn't want to color their perspective of the topic with my own biases. Well, instead of following my advice the student turned around and asked their teacher, who proceeded to give the student a VERY biased answer. Thinking back, I think the best course of action would have been to seize on the opportunity for research. I could have helped the student find encyclopedic definition of "communism" and shown them where they could find other sources such as web, current event, and expository text to help them craft their understanding of the word, rather than letting someone (even their parents) feed them the definition.
~Melissa
Melissa, you make a really important point here - teaching a student how to locate unbiased information (or to find information and then determine if it is biased), rather than directing him to ask another adult for an answer, is a great point. We can think of it as answering an information literacy question - rather than the question 'what is communism?' what the student is really asking is 'where and how can I locate information on what communism is?' If we think of it in that context, it's much less concerning as a non-parent adult.
DeleteLibby--
ReplyDeleteI definitely echo what you've said about realizing when you have a particularly strong or emotional reaction to a piece of news, and examining why you felt the way you did. That was something that the podcast really made me think about. We tend to think of material from media that opposes our own viewpoint as "inflammatory" without really sparing time to look at our own biased media for the same flaws.
I also agree that the librarian must read widely, and with an extensive scope. If librarians cannot read and evaluate, how can we expect our teens to do the same?
Gabbi, great point about our tendency to view media that opposes our own beliefs as being inflammatory. How many times have you seen a meme, quotation, etc. on social media and immediately judged the poster and the information posted as being obviously inflammatory just because you disagreed with it? Would you have the same reaction if you basically agreed with the message, even if you thought the information itself was false?
Delete