Pizzagate and a slice of free speech: Media literacy outside of the classroom

Abstract

Since 2016, the public eye has turned to the problems of mis- and disinformation. As a result, many librarians sprang into action to spread the good news about information and media literacies. At the University of Kansas (KU), we initially joined the rush and created a media literacy LibGuide.1

Promoting Disinformation Literacy Among Adults: A Scoping Review of Interventions and Recommendations

“…Participants in De los Santos et al's (2018) study found value in the shared authority present in the event in which participants had the chance to ask journalists questions and scrutinise the news while journalists asked participants about their news choices. Branstiter et al (2018) presented three activities they conducted in a university setting that aimed to bring media literacy instruction to students who may not receive it in the classroom. Their activities included a fact-checking party during the nal 2016 US presidential debate where students raised ags to indicate statements as being true, false, or red herrings; a teach-in where faculty gave 10-minute lightning talks about their area of research, including journalism, communication, and women and gender studies; and the designation of parts of the library as "free speech zones" where students could get a copy of the US constitution and write what they would change about it.…”

Libraries and Fake News: What’s the Problem? What’s the Plan?

“…(This appears to be the case for most contributions in Agosto [2018].) If not, a few of the more extreme instances of fake news and its consequences, such as Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump or the Pizzagate conspiracy (Banks, 2016;Branstiter, Orozco, Orth-Alfie, & Younger, 2018;Burkhardt, 2017;Commisso, 2017;Johnson, 2017;Sosulski & Tyckoson, 2018), serve as a refresher.…”

“…An equally familiar form of library instruction is the one-shot session or class. Librarians have addressed fake news or incorporated news literacy into existing library-orientation courses (Jeffries et al, 2017;Pun, 2017), offered optional workshops for students (Neely-Sardon & Tignor, 2018;Rush, 2018;Wade & Hornick, 2018), developed course modules (Auberry, 2018), and more (e.g., Agosto, 2018;Branstiter et al, 2018;Rush, 2018). Although some faculty have reached out to librarians to help address concerns about news literacy (e.g., Wade & Hornick, 2018), others remain "unaware of the connection between news literacy and information literacy, and that librarians could tailor instruction sessions around fake news" (Neely-Sardon & Tignor, 2018, p. 6).…”