Worried About the Wrong Things

by Jacqueline Ryan Vickery

  Yet as individuals, and as a society, we have survived. We have developed techniques, norms, and strategies that allow us to navigate new environments in collectively beneficial ways. This has not come without growing pains, without loss, or with equal consequences for all populations, but we have adapted and even thrived amid great change. Even those who argue that too much information can have negative influences probably would agree that, on the whole, more access to more information is positive progress—we just have to learn how to manage it. This is where school plays a significant role in the lives of students today.

  Educators have a responsibility to help young people develop healthy boundaries and critical digital literacy. Yet research indicates that pressure to “teach to the examination” prevents some teachers from incorporating digital and information literacy into the classroom. Teachers are pressured to pass along information (so students can pass state-mandated standardized tests), rather than help students solve problems and seek out information on their own (Julien and Barker 2009). At Freeway High, digital literacy was primarily compartmentalized as a component of courses that explicitly taught technology skills. However, from a research and problem-solving approach to learning, critical digital literacy skills can be incorporated into virtually any subject or classroom. Incorporating digital literacy in the classroom necessitates a move away from harm-driven expectations that perpetuate a discourse of control (and thus purport to minimize risk) and toward an attitude that embraces student-driven learning in a networked society.

  Traditional learning has focused on passing along information from teacher to student or pointing students toward books and classroom resources. However, a critical digital literacy approach encourages and empowers students to seek out information in the classroom in a similar way that they do outside of school: by asking peers for help or using search engines or video tutorials to solve problems and find answers (Ito et al. 2010; Tapscott 1998). There is a risk that a student could stumble upon misinformation or even inappropriate information, but helping students navigate these risks ought to be of the utmost importance in contemporary classrooms. If teachers and schools do not actively guide students’ online information seeking practices, they are left to do so informally without assistance or nuanced strategies. Pedagogically, this requires educators and students alike to resist the urge to conflate knowledge acquisition with information management. In a digital information age, it is equally imperative to not only acquire knowledge, but also to be able to “construct new knowledge through a critical thinking process” (Zheng 2006, p. 55), which is an essential component of critical digital literacy. Rather than just teaching students about media, students benefit by learning about, with, and via media in real-world circumstances. Learning with media requires us to help students think critically about media in a holistic approach and to critically question aspects of media such as, production, audience, commercialization, power, representation, and the values embedded within the everyday webpages and search results that they encounter. In the following sections, I analyze the resources and approaches at Freeway High in order to understand their strategies for managing information risks and benefits. As part of the analysis, I highlight the differences between students’ perspectives and practices and those of the school.

  Misinformation

  By now it should be common knowledge that you cannot trust or believe everything you read online. We know that the web is littered with a plethora of misleading and inaccurate information. Some of it, classified as disinformation, is intentionally designed to deceive and mislead, such as hoaxes. One such example of disinformation is the white supremacist website MartinLutherKing.org, which is deliberately constructed to appear as a legitimate educational site about Martin Luther King Jr. but which intentionally propagates racist lies and conspiracy theories. Founded in 1999 by a former Ku Klux Klan leader, it is operated by a white supremacist organization whose intent is to deliberately spread disinformation and lies. Although full of despicable information, it has provided some students and teachers with a useful lesson in the importance of media and information literacy (Thomson 2011).

  Misinformation, on the other hand, differs from intentional deception, and is typically classified as unintentionally false or inaccurate information that spreads via unsubstantiated rumors, urban legends, and myths (Stahl 2006). Misinformation abounds online, but technology cannot be blamed. Instead, I attribute the root causes for why misinformation spreads to at least three things: bias, incorrect inferential reasoning, and a commercial marketplace of information. First, biases lead to the spread of misinformation because people want to avoid cognitive dissonance—the mental stress or discomfort of experiencing contradictory ideas, behaviors, and attitudes (Festinger 1957). We like to encounter information that supports our preconceived notions and ideologies, even if it is not entirely true (Killoran 2012; Sunstein 2009, 2014). When we come upon information online that supports our beliefs, we are susceptible to sharing it even without checking its validity if it supports our perspectives.3 Second, incorrect inferential reasoning is what happens when people construct a “reality from the messages to which they are exposed by making inferences about what they do not know based on extrapolations from what they see or hear,” which results in a belief of incorrect information (this differs from mere ignorance in which people simply do not know something) (Hofstetter et al. 1999, p. 353). This contributes to the spread of misinformation when people come to fallacious conclusions based on lack of evidence. Third, a commercial marketplace of information describes the news cycle that pressures news organizations to compete with one another to be the first to present new information; this can negatively affect professional fact-checking processes and lead to the spread of misinformation (Saxena 2004). These three explanations account for at least some of the ways in which both professional journalists and citizens contribute to the spread of misinformation.

  It is easy to blame social media for perpetuating misinformation because the platforms connect us to large networks that allow us to quickly access and disseminate information almost instantaneously.4 However, the spread of disinformation and misinformation is certainly not unique to the digital age, and for that reason it is important that we not take a technologically deterministic approach that falsely blames the Internet for the proliferation of misinformation. Preachers, town criers, newspapers, radio broadcasts, and television reports misreported and propagated the spread of false information long before the development of the web. This becomes clear in the midst of a crisis, when there is a high demand for information, even at the expense of fact checking and vetting. For an example we can turn to the televised news coverage that followed the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Initially it was falsely reported by local media outlets—and later picked up by national media—that the bomber was a Muslim (Stammer and Hall 1995). Later we would learn that was patently false (probably explained by the priming of racist attitudes, incorrect inferential reasoning, and commercial pressure to be the first to break the news). We now know the bombing was an act of domestic terrorism committed by two US citizens: Timothy McVeigh, an army veteran with alleged connections to white supremacist groups (German 2005; Solomon 2003), and Terry Nichols, an anti-government extremist. Yet the assertion that the bombing had been committed by a Muslim spread quickly—via television news outlets, newspapers, and everyday rumors—and was not easy to retract, even before the days of social media (or even widespread access to the Internet).

  Two decades later, we have witnessed a multitude of misinformation that has spread via social network sites, message boards, and even via online professional journalism. There are those who will try to maliciously spread disinformation in the form of conspiracies and rumors to propagate their own biases and interests (as MartinLutherKing.org has done), but we know that even well-intentioned individuals and groups sometimes circulate misinformation. For example, after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing t
he online community Reddit accidentally identified an innocent man as the bomber.5 His name was then picked up and circulated within traditional and professional media outlets. Even many technologically savvy individuals with well-developed media and information literacy initially believed the false reports—Pete Williams at NBC, Ross Newman at Digg, Dylan Byers at Politico, and Brian Ries at Newsweek all circulated the misinformation (Lee 2013; Madrigal 2013). Given the fast-paced, high-demand nature of information—particularly at times of crises—we must develop nuanced strategies for fine tuning literacy skills. This is true of both youth and adults, but schools have a unique opportunity to help young people formally learn practical critical media literacies. Critical media literacy is feasible only if schools actively embrace and validate the tools and platforms that teens use to seek and share news and information.

  Critical Digital Literacy

  Scholars from various fields recognize that young people (and adults) must develop new literacies to navigate multimediated environments, not just the Internet but also television, film, advertising, and computers. These literacies tout many different yet similar labels, such as “information literacy” (Bruce 1997; Bawden 2008), “media literacy” (Livingstone 2004; Buckingham 2003; Aufderheide 1997; Jenkins et al. 2009), “new media literacy” (Livingstone 2004, Gilmor 2008), “computer literacy” (Goodson and Mangan 1996), “technical literacy” (Fueyo 1988), and “cyberliteracy” (Gurak 2001). Here I pay particular attention to students’ information-seeking behaviors—as well as their evaluation of and participation in consuming and generating information—in order to examine the literacies necessary for critical engagement. I avoid the term “information literacy,” which has been criticized for being overly functional in its conceptualization (Buckingham 2003). Likewise, many conceptualizations of Internet literacy tend to focus on functionality (that is, the ability to seek out, access, and evaluate information), but without a more critical consideration of production and power. The British education scholar David Buckingham writes:

  Most discussions of Internet literacy remain at the level of assessing the reliability or validity of online information—and therefore tend to neglect some of the broader cultural uses of the Internet (not least by young people). To a large extent, the concern here is with promoting more efficient uses of the medium—for example, via the development of advanced search skills (or so-called ‘power searching’) that will make it easier to locate relevant resources amid the proliferation of online material. This ability to access or locate information is undoubtedly important; yet the skills children need in relation to digital media go well beyond this. (2007, p. 47)

  In accordance with Livingstone, Couvering, and Thumim (2005), Buckingham highlights how typical approaches to information literacy—which largely focus on teaching individuals how to discern factual and accurate information—is a functional approach that neglects larger issues of power and ideology. Such critical questions extend beyond “Is this information correct?” to include questions such as “Who benefits from the spread of this information?” and “What are the underlying assumptions of this text?”

  Bettina Fabos (2004, p. 95) connects critical media literacy with digital literacy when she writes that students need to understand “how political, economic, and social context shapes all texts, how all texts can be adapted for different social purposes, and how no text is neutral or necessarily of ‘higher quality’ than another.” Critical media literacy also considers issues of power; however, Fabos’ contribution draws attention to the ways the information literacy approach often privileges “authoritative” and “accurate” information from professional sources by marginalizing the value of amateur texts. She argues that, rather than seeking an objective “truth,” all texts ought to be considered within different contexts and recognized as serving different purposes. A networked society that promotes amateur voices is not entirely unprecedented—amateur and citizen media pre-date the Internet by more than 100 years (Burns 2008; Smith 1944)—but the Internet nonetheless provides students greater access to amateur voices, including their own peers. Digital media texts require a more nuanced approach to determining the value of information that moves beyond dichotomous understandings of what is or is not reliable.

  Taking these various perspectives into consideration, I utilize the term critical digital literacy in order to refer to the amalgamation of both Buckingham’s and Fabos’ concept of digital and media literacy. Buckingham’s approach, in particular, encompasses and combines aspects of information literacy, digital literacy, and critical media literacy: “Approaching digital media through media education is about much more than simply ‘accessing’ these media, or using them as tools for learning: on the contrary, it means developing a much broader critical understanding, which addresses the textual characteristics of media alongside their social, economic and cultural implications” (2007, p. 48). In the following sections, I analyze Freeway High’s approach to online information, risk, and opportunity by examining the school’s policies, technology strategies, and resources. To emphasize missed opportunities for developing critical digital literacy, I also highlight the discrepancies between school practices and students’ expectations.

  Searching for Meaning

  Freeway High is part of the Central School District (CSD), which sets guidelines and policies for curriculum development, technology plans, and learning objectives for the entire school district.6 One of the CSD’s Technology Planning objectives is to ensure that all students have the opportunity to participate in technology for “collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and innovation.” One strategy for achieving this goal is to subscribe to multiple online databases (EBSCO, Gale, Questia, Facts on File, Encyclopaedia Britannica, etc.) that support information acquisition and instruction in libraries, classrooms, and labs. In itself this is not problematic; arguably the more resources to which students have access, the better. Online databases are valuable resources in students’ learning ecologies. From a basic information perspective, databases provide students with access to reliable information and expert opinions on a given topic. However, static databases—no matter how frequently updated—cannot compete with up-to-date information found online. Students mocked the library online resources. As Jada (16 years old, black) said, “Seriously, nobody uses them.” In a separate interview, Gabriela (16 years old, Mexican-American) commented: “They have, like, three suggestions on them. It’s not usually what you’re looking for, or it’s outdated. I don’t think anyone actually uses them.”

  There was a substantial disparity between what the school was investing in and promoting and the ways students sought out information on their own outside of school. When asked how they typically looked up information, it was not surprising that students relied on free online sources such as Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Despite students’ dismissive attitudes about library resources, these resources serve a purpose and offer a valuable starting point for research. However, databases are clearly limited from the perspective of critical digital literacy: pre-approved and authoritatively validated databases do not allow students an opportunity to critically evaluate the broader context of information production, consumption, and dissemination. School-sanctioned databases privilege authoritative sources and expert opinions at the expense of amateur knowledge and peer perspectives.

  Students consistently reported that teachers and librarians at the school actively encouraged them to use library resources rather than general online sources such as Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia. In part, this was because sites such as YouTube were banned at school. Although other sources (e.g., search engines) were filtered, they were not banned outright. Schools are doing students a disservice when they fail to make easily accessible and free resources available to students. Although the CSD’s Technology Planning policy stated that teachers should be equipped with “up-to-date technology and online skills” (which teachers were expected to incorporate into student curriculum), in pr
actice participants were navigating the Internet without much classroom guidance or teacher support.

  Valuing district-approved sources over students’ preferred modes of learning is a form of control that works contrary to what research tells us about how today’s students learn and make meaning out of their own online searches. Studies consistently demonstrate that learning is enhanced when students are allowed to experiment with their own procedures for solving problems, seeking out information, and when they are encouraged to pursue personal interests in their own ways (Ito et al. 2010; Parker 2010; Schofield and Davidson 2002). Horst, Herr-Stephenson, and Robinson explain:

  Looking around online and searching is an important first step to gathering information about a new and unfamiliar area. … Online sites, forums, and search engines augment existing information resources by lowering the barriers to looking around in ways that do not require specialized knowledge to begin. Looking around online and fortuitous searching can be a self-directed activity that provides young people with a sense of agency, often exhibited in a discourse that they are ‘self-taught’ as a result of engaging in these strategies. The autonomy to pursue topics of personal interest through random searching and messing around generally assists and encourages young people to take greater ownership of their learning process. (2010, p. 57)

  The district’s policies and teachers’ practices, which aimed to direct and control students’ information-seeking practices, were antithetical to the ways research tells us students prefer—and expect—to learn. Controlling access to information denies students a sense of agency over their own quests for knowledge, and instead reinforces adult-centric ways of being taught. The mechanisms controlling students’ practices are reflective of harm-driven expectations that are intended to minimize risks that students may encounter when searching online on their own. Yet autonomous searching leads to greater opportunities for self-guided learning, as well as opportunities for the development of critical digital literacy.