“(Mis)Information Creation as a Process”: A Method for Teaching Critical Media Literacy Designed to Work with Students of All Political Persuasions

After the advent of widespread coordinated disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, librarians stepped up to combat misinformation and disinformation in their communities and the larger information ecosystem by applying principles and best practices of information literacy education. However, librarians walk a fine line on how to educate audiences to become critical consumers of information, particularly on politically sensitive topics. It is all too easy to lose audience members’ trust and receptiveness to our message when a component or the entirety of our presentation challenges the beliefs of participants too forcefully. When we teach information literacy sessions to students, we often talk to them about how to tell “good sources” from “bad sources”. However, when discussing misinformation and disinformation in the news and on social media (including “fake news”, as the term was initially defined), the political sensitivity of the topics requires that librarians find different, more subtle approaches to encouraging critical media literacy that educate students and other community members without provoking political defensiveness.