#ECIL2023 Library instruction for mis/disinformation: French and US perspectives

Pam McKinney live blogging (with an unusually stable internet connection!) from the final day of the ECIL conference. Jouma Boustany has had to step in at the last minute to give this presentation, but it was very accomplished nonetheless! There is a rise in mis/disinformation globally, and it isn’t only limited to social media or political arenas. There is a lack of research h on how mis/disinformation is addressed in the classroom. Misinformation is inaccurate information by accident, and disinformation is inaccurate information shared on purpose. News literacy refers to critical skills to analysing, and judging the reliability of news and information, differentiating between facts, opinions and assertions. The media landscape is often controlled by rich men, and it can be tricky to understand the biases that might be inherent in any one media outlet. The research questions focused on understanding librarians perceptions of misinformation. A survey was distributed, to find out how misinformation is taught by librarians, and sent out to librarian list serves. 189 US librarians responded, and 125 French librarians responded. The vast majority of respondents had higher level qualifications, and worked in the university sector, although there was a big range of the type of institutions represented in the sample. 

French and US librarians had quite similar views, all of them are concerned about mis and disinformation in news media, and the threat of this to democracy. Most think that human fact checkers are important to combat mis and disinformation. 75% considered that it was part of their role to teach about this, and there were some differences between librarian roles between the two countries that could be the reason for some of the discrepancy between answers.

Librarians in both countries are concerned about the spread of mis and disinformation on social media, and they think this should be regulated. There was a lot of agreement that it is the librarian role to teach news literacy to combat mis and disinformation. There was a lot of scepticism about the role that AI could play in improving algorithms to combat mis and disinformation. 68% of French librarians already teach about mis and disinformation, and 79% of US librarians. Some librarians are constrained by a lack of faculty support and a lack of time.