Deconstructing the Nouns of Post-Truth Pedagogy

A spectre is haunting librarianship, one that my fellow panelists and I have identified as the “post-truth”/“fake news” pedagogy problem. My paper delves into the deep ramifications of our published practices and recommendations for instruction around this topic and explores what actual harm exists in the suggested approaches by librarianship to ameliorate the so-called problem of “fake news.” I argue that the harms hidden in these approaches have serious implications for both library work and the students we seek to teach and reach through library instruction.

These approaches to “post-truth” instruction are animated by a disturbing current of capitalist, white, and middle-class norms. My paper explores the myriad ways that this current operates through critiquing the “nouns” of information literacy prescribed by numerous articles and practices from within the field. These nouns refer to products like specific databases, library technology, and trite pedagogical tools—such as LibGuides—that make up a network of related but discrete items around which numerous library workers center the “fake news” discourse.

Within these networks are less obvious “nouns” and relationships—specifically the relations of value seen particularly in communications of financial need within the fiscally tightened neoliberal institutions where many of us work, the much-debated political values (or lack thereof) within the information literacy classroom, and the ways in which the profession markets both value and values to relevant parties within our institutions. Many of these nouns—both those explicit and implicit in the discourses of “post-truth” pedagogy—are deeply entangled in both market and social capitalism and in many ways only continue to bleed the historic scars of white saviorism that librarianship was built upon.

This critique of the recommended practices for “post-truth” and “fake news” pedagogy emerges from great frustration with how our profession has been so eager to take up the banner of combative language against this so-called menace—and gained some prominence in doing so—but has also reproduced non-liberatory, racist, capitalist discourse in doing so. This presentation therefore seeks to contribute to new liberatory realities for instruction and to the avoidance of future harm.

Transcript

1. Deconstructing The Nouns of Post Truth Pedagogy CARRIE WADE // UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MILWAUKEE // WADECG@UWM.EDU // @THEGNARRATOR // #CAPAL19
2. A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING LIBRARIANSHIP The discourse of instruction over the last 3ish years has become obsessed with narratives of "Post Truth and "Fake News" instruction.
3. BUT WHAT IF I SUGGESTED P O S T T R U T H P E D A G O G Y D O E S N O T H A V E T H E B E S T I N T E R E S T S O F B U I L D I N G A N E Q U I T A B L E A N D J U S T D E M O C R A C Y , O R E V E N I M P R O V I N G S O C I A L C O N D I T I O N S I N M I N D ? AND INSTEAD IT ONLY HOLDS A LIMITED INTERESTS IN PROMOTING LIBRARY AGENDAS AND DABBLING IN POP PSYCHOLOGY WITHOUT MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT IN STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS OF OPPRESSION.
4. 55 A R T I C L E S , R E P O R T S , A N D B O O K C H A P T E R S F O C U S E D O N F A K E N E W S I N A C A D E M I C L I B R A R I E S S I N C E 2 0 1 6 I READ THEM ALL.
5. it was not fun.
6. GO BEYOND THE FIELD R O U G H L Y 1 5 A R T I C L E S F R O M P H I L O S O P H Y , P O L I T I C A L S C I E N C E , C O M P U T E R S C I E N C E , A N D C U L T U R A L S T U D I E S . T H E S E H A D M U C H M O R E T O S A Y O N T H E T O P I C . ( M O R E O N T H I S I N T H E A N A L Y S I S T H O U G H )
7. WHY NOUNS? JAMES K ELMBORG, 2012 we are “noun-driven in our discussions about research, easily turning ideas into concrete things so we can define, explore, and describe them.”
8. So what does it mean explore the discourse and interplay of them? M Y D E B T S T O F O U C A U L T H E R E A S W E L L !
9. KEY NOUNS OF THE "PROBLEM" FILTER BUBBLE The conditions under which one is selectively exposed, or selectively seeks out information that confirms their worldview or actively avoids anything upsetting, distasteful, or incongruent with prior beliefs, knowledge, and opinions (Cooke, 2018). BOTS In most publications it is accurately referred to as an automated false personality on a social media platform created by an algorithm—often on Twitter, as it is the most conducive for bot creation—designed for a variety of purposes. FAKE NEWS Sources that intentionally fabricate information, disseminate deceptive content, or grossly distort actual news reports (knapp, nd). Many also refer to Misinformation and Disinformation as types of Fake News POST-TRUTH The 2016 the Oxford English Dictionary word of the year, it is listed as an adjective that denotes “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (OED). But in the LIS literature it takes on meaning as a noun. In its noun form it is a reaction, mood, feeling of our time. ALGORITHMS Simply put, algorithms are logical inputs that form the basis for computerized decision making systems (Brogan, 2016)
10. KEY NOUNS OF "THE SOLUTIONS" NEWS/MEDIA LITERACY A solution posed by the LIS community that suggests students need to learn how to properly judge and engage with news sources, including strategies for reading, assessing, judging, and sharing articles over social media. Experts have suggested that it is a means for students to gain social capital (Head, Wihbey, Metaxas, MacMillan, & Cohen, 2018) and address the alleged problem of fake news. THE CHECKLIST How else could a formerly ignorant person bypass their prior biases than by a checklist!? a series of prescribed steps used to “fact check” a given news article to see if it is fake news or real news. Often it is delivered in the form of an infographic recommending that a reader go through the process of 8-10 steps. The IFLA infographic is ubiquitous in the literature and on LibGuides far and wide. (see next slide for reference) THE ACRONYM CRAAP, RADCAB, SMELL, IM VA/IN, and more I can't even remember! These are mnemonic devices originall offered as a shortcut for people to follow that will allegedly help then assess the quality of an article for scholarly purposes, but have evolved for news and media sniffing purposes. THE DATABASE/LIBRARY PRODUCT Frequently used as a solution to the alleged Post-Truth and fake News crisis, it suggests that working with vendors and directing students to the known reliable products of vendors will solve our democratic issues (Rose-Wiles, 2018) . Of particular note is the Opposing viewpoints product by Gale (Auberry, 2018), a product that presents “opposing” and contextualized information on different hot-button issues for lower-level undergraduates.
12. THE DOCUMENTS THAT JUSTIFY THE LIBRARIES TRANSFORM CAMPAIGN THE FRAMEWORK FOR INFORMATION LITERACY a document that informs how librarians broach the topic of any kind of instruction with faculty colleagues or semester-long for-credit courses. This seems to be the main document cited and used to justify particular approaches to Post-Truth informed pedagogy, with particular focus on Authority is constructed and contextual, information has value, and scholarship as conversation STANFORD HISTORY EDUCATION GROUP REPORT This is the often cited study from 2016 (that was updated in 2018) that researched students’ abilities to detect credibility in sources and other selected markers of news, media, and information literacy A campaign introduced to market libraries’ Value to their respective communities. Often they are a simple statement of a library’s value against a plain gradient background.
13. TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? OR BETTER YET. WHAT IS MISSING?
14. Social Capital is delivered in Project Information Literacy as an unquestioned good. "NEWS LITERACY BUILDS SOCIAL CAPITAL"
15. HOW LIS TALKS ABOUT STUDENTS AND THEIR BEHAVIORS INTELLECTUALLY LAZY (COOKE, 2018) UNCURIOUS VICTIM OF "COGNITIVELY TRANSMITTED DISEASE" (ROSE-WILES, 2017)
16. IT FOCUSES O N I N D I V I D U A L S O L U T I O N S T O C O M P L E X S O C I A L P R O B L E M S THE LITERATURE S U G G E S T S T H A T W E " F I X S T U D E N T S " T O " F I X " D E M O C R A C Y
17. Post-Truth is the side effect of a deeper informational legacy IT'S ALSO NOT DIGGING DEEP ENOUGH
18. IDEOLOGY Not mentioned once in the LIS Literature, but when looking into Cultural Studies (Mejia) and Philosophy (Shelby) literature, it becomes essential for understanding the dimensions of how truth is socially established and facts can be rendered meaningless under various illusions and false consciousnesses (Shelby, 2003) Numerous articles edge close to calling out the Racist and White Christian Nationalist bent to Post Truth ideologies, such as an article that identified a skew between belief in authenticity of Barack Obama's Birth Certificate (Rochlin, 2017) but refuses to explore the gap in believability. Specifically, the ideologies of Racism, White and Christian Nationalism that have taken particular rise were particularly strong targets for Russian Internet Research Agency Trolls due to their strong existing presence (DiResta, 2018) and for the extent to which their posts were shared and spread over Twitter from September to November 2016 (Badawy, 2018)
19. IDEOLOGY IS NOTHING NEW Divisive ideologies have long been used to provide scapegoats and distract oppressed peoples from groups of solidarity to rise up against a common oppressor (such as capital) an invented, othered enemy (such as immigrants) .
20. BUT YOU WON'T SEE IT MENTIONED ON ANY LIBGUIDES.
21. FACT-CHECKING DOESN'T FIX RACISM C A L L I N G I D E O L O G I E S E X P L I C I T L Y R A C I S T , H O W E V E R , M I G H T B E A B E T T E R A P P R O A C H , I N S T E A D O F T R Y I N G T O " B O T H - S I D E S " T H E A L L E G E D P R O B L E M .
22. DIGGING INTO THE MEDIA... AND CAPITALISM
23. SOCIAL MEDIA Platforms such as Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. where people share thoughts, videos, pictures, articles, and other activity. Most concerningly to this discourse, the sharing of articles and opinions on social media are the algorithms for content ranking, the reporting systems for objectionable content, and the enforcement of speech guidelines. Similarly, one could argue that forums and boards such as Reddit also fall into the category of Social Media as well. NEWS MEDIA Platforms that provide mediated access to news coverage on a 24- hour, seemingly non-stop cycle. They vary in their medium or origin (print, broadcast, radio, etc) but many also use social media to enhance access to content and spread of content and feature blogs, opinion pieces, and more. They must continue to compete with other Social Media content for ranking, attention, in addition to ad sales and subscription revenue if applicable.
24. TALKING ALGORITHMS M O R E O F T H E M I S N O T T H E S O L U T I O N Algorithms for fake news will not fix this made up problem. F A C E B O O K A N D P E R S O N A L I Z A T I O N Facebook collected surplus data that was used to engage in predictive behavior that has informed everything down to promotional material for advertisers, etc. Used notoriouslyby Cambridge Analytica the push pro-Brexit Leave campaign in the UK and the pro-Trump material in the US--two major flashpoints of the "post-truth" discourse. S A F I Y A U N O B L E Algorithms of Oppression is a great book, but it specifically looks at Google's ranking algorithms. Google does collect a surplus of personal data to shape those ranking algorithms, so there is that to consider as well. More work needs to be continued on this front.
26. MORE CAPITALISM ISN'T GOING TO FIX IT. UNCHECKED CAPITALISM CREATED FILTER BUBBLES
27. THE PROBLEM WITH NEWS IT IS SELECTIVE IT IS DRIVEN BY WHITE, CAPITALIST PURSUITS QUALITY = MONEY (AND USUALLY WHITENESS) News sources cannot resaonably cover everything, therefore, it covers thing things that are likely to be algorithmically successful or be right for their audience. if they have paid subscribers. If they rely on advertisers, that has more influence. No one is in this for free. If you look at the media bias chart on the next slide (made famous by JD Otero), you'll notice that most of the outlets represented are predominantely white. Whites run newsrooms of all qualities and types, and it is assumed the are the dominant audience too. See the Otero Media Bias chart. Not a single predominantly black, Latinx, Asian, or non-dominantly white newspaper or outlet is represented.
28. IMAGE REMOVED TO AVOID BEING SUED BY VANESSA OTERO, SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE THAT INFORMATION DESERVES TO BE FREELY SHARED OR CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES.
29. furthermore. Why would you suggest students look at news articles from "the other side" when that article could contain ideas that are potentially dehumanizing? (this is especially for women, people of color, disabled, LGB, trans, queer, and the many intersections thereof)
30. OH THE LIBRARIES How we're using Post-Truth Pedagogy to communicate our "Value"
31. LIBRARIES TRANSFORM
33. FACT CHECK: LIBRARIANSHIP HAS ONLY EXISTED AS A DEGREED PROFESSION SINCE THE 19TH CENTURY. LIBRARIES HAVE ONLY BEEN AROUND SINCE ABOUT 2600 BC. NOT QUITE FOREVER. ALSO MOST PEOPLE COULD NOT READ.
34. A N A T T E M P T T O S H A P E O U R N A R R A T I V E ! to say that we are somehow the magical experts in this political dilemma T O P R O V E O U R V A L U E get that money, honey! WHAT IS THIS TRANSFORMING?
35. MORE DATABASES? databases and collections budgets are shrinking as prices surge for journal packages (*cough* Elsevier *cough*) i.e. Opposing Viewpoints in context probably isn't worth it. Again, you can't fix capitalism with more capitalism!
36. LIS IS NOT THE FIELD TO FIX THIS PROBLEM S O M E H O W T H I N K S D E M O C R A C Y W A S O N C E G O O D it wasn't. it has always been incredibly flawed. A V O I D S C A L L I N G O U T H A R M F U L I D E O L O G Y grounded largely by the need ot address "both sides" and preserve some illusion of neutrality D O E S N O T D O E N O U G H T O T R A N S C E N D T H E D I S C I P L I N E relies too much on 2-3 documents as reasons to act.
37. DEMOCRACY What has been largely missing in much of the discussion of "Fake News" and Post-Truth pedagogy is the true challenges of democracy and what it means to grow and nurture a healthy one. it is not through fact checking and acronyms, nor through social capital. Democracy's biggest threat is the top-down stripping of rights through unnecessary voter ID laws (such as those in my state of Wisconsin that kept numerous black folks away from the polls in my own city of Milwaukee), historically perverse gerrymandering, and the stripping of prisoner voting rights. Similarly, in order to grow a democracy we need to learn to think stronger together and form communities. We can do this through Information Literacy within our classrooms, but it doesn't have to be like the ways prescribed.
38. THAT SPECTRE SO I SAID IT WAS POST-TRUTH PEDAGOGY, BUT REALLY... IT'S INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS FOR SOCIALLY CREATED CAPITALIST AND COLONIALIST STRUCTURES OF INFORMATION CONSUMPTION.