19. Information Disorder
A thread from a UK university lecturer and the experience of the Covid-19 infodemic provides the backdrop for this foray into the bewildering information ecosystem that has developed online. Drawing on the important work of Kari Kivinen and Claire Wardle in the knowledge that labels can rarely neatly define social phenomena, Dr Emma Pauncefort underlines the need to work with a spectrum between ‘good’ and ‘poor’ information rather than two clear, opposing categories. She focuses on the need to exercise heightened vigilance with the ‘grey middle’ of information and to think carefully about source authority. Finally, she reiterates that in the context of technological advancement, it remains a human skill to navigate online content.
For further reading on this topic see: Emma Pauncefort, ‘Critical Literacy is at the Heart of an Answer’ in Media, Technology and Education in Post-Truth Society: From Fake News, Datafication and Mass Surveillance to the Death of Trust, ed. by Alex Grech (Emerald, forthcoming).
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