Information and News Literacy Pedagogy

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a “magnificent obsession” for an author. It becomes something always at the back of one’s mind and you never know when an insight that clarifies a messy issue will pop into one’s head. I am completely responsible for any errors in the book and for the theory and data on which this book is based. This book is greatly enriched by the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire. I first encountered Freire’s work as a graduate student and over the years have tried to integrate his approach into my classes. Now 35 years later, this course represents my best effort at bringing his work to university students. I am greatly indebted to his work and to colleagues over the years who have also worked with Freire’s pedagogy. This accomplishment did not come without the input and encouragement of colleagues at the University of Windsor. As a course that developed over several iterations, the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Windsor was immensely helpful in encouraging the development of the course. An early meeting with the director of the Centre, Erika Kustra, and learning specialist, Jessica Raffoul, raised my spirits after a couple of frustrating efforts with the course. Jessica has been especially helpful in directing me to relevant journals in the scholarship of teaching and learning and read a draft of this book early on to offer me assurance that I was on the right track. I thank the University of Windsor for a Fall 2021 sabbatical which greatly facilitated the organization and writing of this project. Finally, I would like to thank all the students who have taken Information Searching and Analysis. They are the stars of this course and made this book possble through the way they embraced the course. Student comments at the end of most chapters were the inspiration for this book.←vii | viii→

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: News and Information Literacy for a “Post-Truth” World

The impetus for the course on which this book is based was rather modest in the early 2010s. Students using the Internet for their coursework were exhibiting naïve trust in the digital search for news and information and a utilitarian orientation to using the Internet—getting it done over getting it right. Both were problematic in getting a more complete information profile about contemporary and historical issues. Experience with a course unit created to help students analyze websites for their integrity in one course only served to encourage the creation of a whole course which would help students master the promises and pitfalls of Internet search for news and information.

As this course has developed over the last decade, the information system the Internet has become has fostered even more challenges—not just for students but for all those who use the Internet as their source for news and information. As many discovered the power and reach of the Internet, it became a wellspring for digital propagandists and disinformation specialists to flood peoples’ social media feeds and email accounts with the messaging that taps into their cognitive and emotional lives to cajole, persuade and even bamboozle them into buying a product, or supporting an agenda, idea or candidate. Everyday citizens have been roiled as the Internet has become saturated with propaganda websites designed to look like trustworthy local news sources (Columbia Journalism Review, 2021). ←1 | 2→Online advertisements purchased by international interests are used to distort political discourse and create mass misunderstandings of the socio-political world.