Topics Recap

In this class, we have studied and discussed the following topics:

• Questions, (“information needs”) and the importance of questioning
• The Information Landscape (publishing, journalism, internet technologies, media, types of sources, access to information, where libraries fit in)
• Search Tools (besides Google, we looked at library databases, catalogs, publicly available data sets, government databases, etc)
• Search Strategies (processes, steps and methods for being a more effective searcher using those tools)
• Source evaluation; Credibility of information
• Academic Integrity and citation/attribution

But why?

What is the connecting thread that brings it all together? Why does a class like this exist?

Think back to our discussion about the information landscape. We talked about the concept that there is no quality control, no gatekeeper telling you what is good to know and what is information “junk food” (to quote Pariser). It’s not like the old days with the newspapers! Eli Pariser was worried about the quality and diversity of perspectives provided to you via social media. Also, his talk touched upon concerns of journalistic ethics, and how those ethics or principles should transfer over into the era of new technologies.

Consider the current economic model of an open platform, where we expect everything to be free, or very inexpensive. Yet, in an open platform, the wealthier, privileged few are better able to promote their information than those who lack the resources. Ask yourself now: what is the value of information. Would you pay for a newspaper for better curated news? What is it worth to you to get reliable information?

In an information landscape as complex as the one we have today, we depend on people being highly skilled: people need to be educated to be more “media literate” (as some put it) or, “information literate,” to know how to filter out the good, high quality, factual information, from the junk. That is why this class exists. Those skills and those literacies are what I’ve been trying to give you, to empower you.

But how hard is it to find the quality information using our current technology? How hard should it be? What is the cost of educating everyone this way (or trying to)? Should we be putting the burden on individual citizens? To what degree should corporations (the people writing algorithms) get involved in this concern?

What to do:

For this final discussion board, please think and reflect over all these topics from a larger perspective and read Erik Olin Wright’s chapter on Democracy. Wright provides a short and clear argument to address why it is important to have citizens who can find reliable, high quality information.

React to my question prompts above, to the “but why?” of this class, in the light of Wright’s chapter. You can write your own short essay addressing these topics, and use Wright as your starting point.

Or

you may be guided by my prompts below:

1. Of all the different ways Wright mentions that the ideal of democracy can be undermined (refer to page 3), which ones are relevant to this class, and why are they relevant?

2. Describe how we can understand the “rational ignorance” phenomenon. What is this? Are there people in your own life who demonstrate this phenomenon? How do you react to it? In general what can we do about it? In your answer, please describe the problem and propose a solution. In your solution please include the value of information, the ethics of algorithms (or of the media corporations), and the importance of reliable information to the participation of citizens in a democracy.

This is a library class about researching methods and web literacy.