{"id":11758,"date":"2023-02-15T11:46:35","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T15:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=11758"},"modified":"2023-02-15T11:46:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T15:46:35","slug":"libraries-research-news-challenging-misinformation-through-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/15\/libraries-research-news-challenging-misinformation-through-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Libraries Research News: Challenging Misinformation Through Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared in the January 2023 edition of Libraries’ Research Highlight newsletter.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

At this paradoxical moment in history, more Americans have access to high quality, factual information at their fingertips than ever before, and yet, conspiracy theories and their believers have never appeared more prevalent or more powerful in inspiring grassroots fanaticism. How did this happen, and more importantly, what can we, as educators,\u00a0research<\/span>ers, and concerned citizens, do about it?<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Libraries<\/span>\u00a0and School of Information Studies, we are actively seeking solutions to the misinformation epidemic. One faculty member at the forefront, Dr. Matthew N. Hannah, is exploring the public impacts of information technology and the way such technology facilitates and accelerates the growth and spread of viral online conspiracy theories. His\u00a0research<\/span>\u00a0focuses on the visual aspects of conspiracy graphics and maps and the role they play in convincing Americans of a conspiracy theory\u2019s legitimacy, the rhetorical and structural elements of social media in spreading mis\/disinformation, and the informational dynamics of online conspiracies.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Dr. Hannah brought his\u00a0research<\/span>\u00a0into the classroom to engage students in a challenging project with real-world applications. Co-directed with Associate Professor Bethany McGowan (Libraries<\/span>), \u201cDiplomacy Lab\u201d focused on global mis\/disinformation. Collaborating with the Purdue Policy\u00a0Research<\/span>\u00a0Institute and the U.S. Department of State, Dr. Hannah and Professor McGowan led an undergraduate initiative to respond to the information needs of U.S. diplomats in assessing mis\/disinformation. While learning to be smarter consumers and creators of information and data themselves, students had the opportunity to design and build an information toolkit for government officials (see the toolkit here<\/a>) that was well-received by the Department of State.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Diplomacy Lab class session, 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Building on the success of \u201cDiplomacy Lab,\u201d Dr. Hannah is also leading a\u00a0research<\/span>\u00a0initiative through the Institute of Information Literacy at Purdue, entitled \u201cInformation Literacy in the Age of Online Mis\/Dis\/Malinformation<\/a>.\u201d This project will bring experts in psychology, political science, computer science, and communications together to develop an information literacy toolkit for the masses, designed to help the public intervene directly when encountering online conspiracy theories. This framework will provide the basis for future toolkits to help de-radicalize conspiracy theorists.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in reading more of Dr. Hannah\u2019s work, his\u00a0research<\/span>\u00a0on the conspiracy theory QAnon has appeared in\u00a0First Monday<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Social Media + Society<\/em><\/a>. He has an article focused on online conspiracies and information literacy forthcoming in a special issue of the\u00a0Journal of Information Literacy,<\/em>\u00a0and a chapter forthcoming in the book\u00a0Extremism and Conspiracy Movements: From the Alt-Right to QAnon\u00a0<\/em>(Lexington Books). He is also co-editor with Dr. Christopher Conner (University of Missouri) of a special issue of\u00a0Frontiers in Communication<\/em>\u00a0focused on the public impact of conspiracy theories, entitled \u201cParanoid Publics: Conspiracy Theories and the Public Sphere<\/a>.\u201d This semester, Dr. Hannah will teach \u201cAmerican Studies 301: American Conspiracy Theories,\u201d which focuses on the conspiracism pervading American cultural and political life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (see the syllabus here<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared in the January 2023 edition of Libraries’ Research Highlight newsletter.\u00a0 At this paradoxical moment in history, more Americans have access to high quality, factual information at their fingertips than ever before, and yet, conspiracy theories and their believers have never appeared more prevalent or more powerful in inspiring grassroots fanaticism. How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4828,13,92,13103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty_staff","category-general","category-press_release","category-research-highlight"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pT6ms-33E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11758"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11766,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11758\/revisions\/11766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}