According to the Pew Research Center, more than 70% of Americans regularly use social media. Most of us rely on Google, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit or YouTube for information. But how do we know the information we get from these internet giants is reliable? What drives misinformation? What makes us susceptible to it? Are we too gullible? And how can educators make sure that all students have the information literacy to navigate an increasingly complex and often confusing media landscape?
Join podcast host and Professor of history Dr. Babette Faehmel and her guests, Professor or Arts and Media at SUNY Empire State College, Thomas Mackey; Professor of Communication at SUNY Schenectady Rae Doyle; and the SUNY Schenectady students Nate Friedman and Cody Lewis, for a discussion of how disinformation functions to keep power structures intact, how it works on our psyches, and why we need to close the digital divide to eliminate a key equity hazard.
This episode is brought to you by our generous friends at C2 Design Group a regionally and nationally recognized architecture firm located in Schenectady, New York. They are designers, architects, partners and guides working toward a shared purpose to create spaces that support their client’s goals. Visit c2-designgroup.com to learn more about their work.
Mixing and editing of this episode was made possible by SUNY Schenectady's Music students Aidan Farley and Aidan Bachorik.
For further reading:
Head, A. J., DeFrain, E., Fister, B., & MacMillan, M. (2019). Across the great divide: How today’s college students engage with news. First Monday, 24(8). https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10166.
Head, A. J., Fister, B., Geofrey, S. & MacMillan, M. (2022). The project information literacy retrospective: Insights from more than a decade of information literacy research, 2008-2022. Project Information Research Institute. https://projectinfolit.org/publications/retrospective.
Mackey, T. P. & Jacobson, T. E.'s Metaliteracy blog (https://metaliteracy.org/)
Mackey, T. P. & Jacobson, T. E. (2022) Metaliteracy in a connected world: Developing learners as producers. Neal-Schuman/ALA Editions.
Mackey, T. P. & Jacobson, T. E. Eds. (2019) Metaliterate learning for the post-truth world. Neal-Schuman/ALA Editions.
The views voiced on this episode reflect the lived experiences and uncensored opinions of the guests; they do not necessarily capture the full diversity of attitudes within a larger community, nor do they express an official view of SUNY Schenectady.