Avoiding Misinformation, Disinformation, and Dismediation
Barry Mauer and John Venecek
We discuss the following topics on this page:
We also provide the following activity:
Avoiding Misinformation, Disinformation, and Dismediation
Good scholarship protects us from misinformation (wrong or misleading information), disinformation (intentionally deceptive information), and dismediation (intentionally deceptive efforts to discredit reliable channels of information).[1] Popular social media platforms in particular are rife with misleading, wrong, and deceitful claims. You should not rely on such sources for factual claims (unless you are a pro who can independently verify the information you get from them – and even then, you will need to explain why you are using such sources instead of scholarly ones).
The institutions that support scholarship, such as granting agencies, peer-reviewed journals, libraries, and so on, rely on gatekeepers to keep bad information out and allow good information in. Of course, no such system is foolproof, so we need to maintain our own critical abilities. The scholarly system, when it works well, polices itself. When scholars see misinformation, disinformation, or dismediation in the work of other scholars, it is their professional responsibility to point it out and demand a correction.
We don’t want to be too strict about information sources, however. Some scholars dismiss journals that are new, have a low rejection rate, don’t have illustrious board members, publish infrequently, only publish online, etc. In other words, it might be snobbish to believe that nothing published in such journals can be taken seriously because the journal (the media channel) itself is suspect. While long-established journals with low acceptance rates and illustrious board members, etc. have earned their good reputations, they also can become stodgy and boring. Journals that are new or less well-known can be good sources of information because they might be in a better position to introduce new ideas to the field.
Discernment
As readers, we bring critical thinking to our research. Gullibility, or trusting too easily, is a problem because it means we are more likely to accept misinformation, disinformation, or dismediation. But we can go too far in the other direction and end up in cynicism – not trusting at all – which leads us to reject reliable sources. For instance, the internet has enormous amounts of information that is true and useful. Refusing to accept it because it’s on the internet is as problematic as accepting everything that’s on the internet. Our struggle is to practice discernment: when to trust and when not to trust. Discernment requires care and effort.
Our blind spots – gaps in our knowledge – present obstacles to discernment. These gaps make us vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger effect: “people suffering the most among their peers from ignorance or incompetence fail to recognize just how much they suffer from it.”[2] Researchers need to catch their own assumptions by seeing what others are saying about a source, identifying the unknowns: “gaps in knowledge may go unrecognized in everyday life because people fail to have outside agents hovering over them” (254).
Click on the following link for a tutorial on SIFT (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace) from Wayne State University, which helps you overcome your blind spots and distinguish good sources from problematic sources.
Key Takeaways
| Do | Don’t |
| Understand what constitutes useful information in your discipline and for your project | Ignore criteria for what constitutes useful information in your discipline and for your project |
| Use ACRL standards to determine the credibility of journals in your field | Use materials from journals without a clear understanding of their credibility within your field |
| Ask whether bias in your source material is warranted or unwarranted | Reject sources out of hand because they exhibit bias – first ask whether the bias is unwarranted |
| Point out unwarranted bias in the scholarly work we find | Repeat unwarranted bias without comment |
| Additional research to determine whether your source contains disinformation, misinformation, or dismediation | Repeat disinformation, misinformation, or dismediation without comment |
| Understand the system of gatekeeping within your discipline | Ignore the system of gatekeeping within your discipline |
Evaluation will be a recurring theme in a later chapter when we move into refining and evaluating your research question.
Exercises
- Why do we need gatekeepers in our disciplines?
- What efforts should you, as a researcher, make to ensure source credibility?
- What are the differences between warranted and unwarranted bias?
- How significant are the problems of disinformation, misinformation, and dismediation in our society recently?
- If there are any elements of your assignment that need clarification, please list them.
- What was the most important lesson you learned from this module? What point was confusing or difficult to understand?
Note the rubric for evaluating scholarly resources below. Use the rubric as you are evaluating the sources you find.
| Above Satisfactory (A/B) | Satisfactory (C) | Below Satisfactory (D/F) | |
| Authority | The author(s) of identified sources are credible and their findings appear in a peer-reviewed academic journal or a book from a respected academic press. | The author(s) may or may not be credible. Not every source is from a peer- reviewed academic journal or press. | The author(s) lack credibility. Sources are not published in a peer-reviewed academic journal or press. |
| Warranted Bias | Correctly distinguishes author(s) who avoid unwarranted bias against good evidence and arguments, and who use warranted bias against bad behaviors or false claims, from authors who don’t. | Mostly distinguishes author(s) who avoid unwarranted bias against good evidence and arguments, and who use warranted bias against bad behaviors or false claims, from authors who don’t. | Does not distinguish author(s) who avoid unwarranted bias against good evidence and arguments, and who use warranted bias against bad behaviors or false claims, from authors who don’t. |
| Grammar/ Mechanics | MLA or APA was used correctly while finding trustworthy sources. Sentence structure as well as grammar, punctuation, and capitalization were used correctly with minimal to no errors. | Generally, MLA or APA format is used correctly while finding trustworthy sources. However, there are some mistakes. Some awkward sentences appear as well as some grammar, punctuation, and capitalization errors. | There are multiple incorrect sentence structures used while finding trustworthy sources. It also lacks the use of correct MLA or APA format. There are significant errors in grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. |
