Young People's Experiences With Mis/disinformation: A Participatory Research Project With First-Year Undergraduates

• In Event: Toward Responsive Media Pedagogies: Youth Sociopolitical Sense-Making and Platform Politics in Digitally Mediated Worlds

Abstract

This project aims to 1) integrate young people’s voices and perspectives in discussions about mis/disinformation and 2) provide a socially situated understanding of young people’s consumption and production of mis/disinformation.

Although literacy has long been recognized as a social practice, information literacy connected with consuming mis/disinformation is still framed as a set of skills to be taught and mastered (cf. Buckingham, 2019). Often, lessons focus on the discernment of mis/disinformation and are framed as an issue related to children and young people’s lack of knowledge and skills. This approach simplifies information ecologies as well as social aspects of consuming and producing information (Savolainen, 2010). Further, the approach takes a deficit approach to children and young people’s information literacies, assuming that students have little to offer in relation to understanding information ecologies (Folk, 2018).

This study investigates young people’s experiences of mis/disinformation consumption and production through participatory research projects with first-year undergraduate students. The projects are part of a class designed for students from minoritized communities, including first-generation and BIPOC students, which is aimed to develop confidence and skills through a cohort model. The class provides students with an understanding of debates connected with misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’ as well as current research on information literacy teaching and learning practices. The students conduct 9-week research projects on a topic of their choice (e.g. information about COVID-19, voter fraud, immigration) related to how young people find, exchange, understand and act on information related to their chosen topic. Student projects involve empirical research (conducting small-scale surveys and interviews) that respond to current research and teaching practices. The conclusion involves students making suggestions for ways to improve their high school’s approach to teaching about mis/disinformation.

For this symposium, students will share their findings through brief pre-recorded video presentations which will be curated by the in-person presenter. Findings are ongoing, and a new set of student projects will be created in Fall 2022. In the past, students have argued that information literacy teaching in high schools and middle schools is simplistic, repetitive and not applicable to their everyday encounters with potential sources of mis/disinformation. Students argue for an approach that goes beyond ‘tricks to spot misinformation’, and instead teaches critical media literacy. Interestingly, students see space for this in a variety of subjects in middle and high schools including art, history, English and computer science.

Students’ findings indicate the limitations of current information literacy teaching which takes little account of ways young people are consuming and producing information. Further, findings highlight the ways schools currently employ a deficit model of teaching in which young people’s experiences are ignored. The research indicates that a socially situated view of information literacy needs to be employed in order for information literacy instruction to be effective with regards to teaching and learning about mis/disinformation.

Authors

• Rebekah Willett, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Layla Coleman, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author