Keywords
First year writing, Online Sources, Media/information literacy
Abstract
It has become almost rote to say that now, more than ever, students need to understand how to navigate web content to find verifiable and reliable information sources. While the data-collection portion of this study took place in the aftermath of the 2016 American presidential election, with students and the public increasingly confused about #fakenews and what media sources to trust to disseminate information (Rainie & Anderson, 2017), structural revisions of this article took place during the COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing racial protests in the United States. As university campuses closed around the country in spring 2020, students, professors, and librarians alike headed home to watch the stories unfold online. And many of them also took to the streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. As the outbreak and protests evolved quickly, so did misinformation, partial information, and well-meaning, but bad, information. Will ibuprofen make me more likely to be hospitalized if I get coronavirus? Did federal enforcement groups take protesters off the streets in unmarked vehicles? Can I make my own hand sanitizer? Are young people dying from the illness? Which white nationalist groups were involved in rioting? These questions, and varied answers to them, spread like wildfire on the open web, with people grasping for any semblance of an answer during a time when answers were as scarce as toilet paper.
Citation Information
Type of Source: Journal Article
Authors: Elise Silva, Jessica Green, Michael Mendoza
Year of Publication: 2021
Title: “What do first-year students find reliable in online sources”
Publication: Kairos 25 (2)