1.
Fake News, Real Concerns: What
Can Librarians Do to Improve
Information Literacy in the Age of
the Social Media Noise Machine?
Donald A. Barclay
University of California, Merced Library

2.
Who am I?
• Library Career
• University of California, Merced
• New Mexico State University, University of Houston, Texas Medical
Center
• Past Lives
• Boise State University—Taught Freshman Comp. & American Lit.
• U.S. Forest Service—Firefighter
• Education
• U. C. Berkeley—M.A., M.L.I.S.
• Boise State University—B.A.
Donald A. Barclay

3.
Who are you?
• School Librarian
• Public Librarian
• Academic Librarian
• Teacher
• Ninja Warrior
• Other

4.
In 2016, the phrase “fake news”
appeared in the headline of 58 articles
published in The New York Times.
How many times did that happen in 2015?

5.
Fake
News

6.
Is fake news the moral
panic de jour?
• How many people actually believe fake news and how much of it do
they believe?
• Did fake news sway the election?
Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election,” Journal
of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 2 (2017): 211–36,
https://www.aeaweb.org/full_issue.php?doi=10.1257/jep.31.2#page=213.
• Are people really trapped in fake news echo chambers?
William H. Dutton, “Fake News, Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles: Underresearched and
Overhyped,” The Conversation, May 2017, http://theconversation.com/fake-news-echo-chambers-
and-filter-bubbles-underresearched-and-overhyped-76688%0D.

7.
Fake News:
Creating Context

8.
Challenges of the
Information Age
• Amount of information.
• Speed/low cost at which information can
created, reproduced, and delivered.
• Ease with which information can be altered.

9.
Lying

10.
Mercenary fake news

11.
ASTOUNDING
NEWS!
BY EXPRESS VIA NORFOLK!
———————
THE
ATLANTIC CROSSED
IN
THREE DAYS!
———————
SIGNAL TRIUMPH
OF
MR. MONCK MASON’S
FLYING
MACHINE!!!
———————
Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, near Charlestown, S. C., of Mr.
Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison
Ainsworth, and four others, in the
STEERING BALLOON
“VICTORIA,”
AFTER A PASSAGE OF
SEVENTY-FIVE HOURS
FROM LAND TO LAND.
———————
FULL PARTICULARS
OF THE
VOYAGE!!!
April 13, 1844

12.
ASTOUNDING
NEWS!
BY EXPRESS VIA NORFOLK!
———————
THE
ATLANTIC CROSSED
IN
THREE DAYS!
———————
SIGNAL TRIUMPH
OF
MR. MONCK MASON’S
FLYING
MACHINE!!!
———————
Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, near Charlestown, S. C., of Mr. Mason,
Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in the
STEERING BALLOON
“VICTORIA,”
AFTER A PASSAGE OF
SEVENTY-FIVE HOURS
FROM LAND TO LAND.
———————
FULL PARTICULARS
OF THE
VOYAGE!!!

13.
Propaganda

14.
Mercenary? Propaganda? Both?

15.
Humor

16.
Alteration

17.
• Lying
• Mercenary News
• Propaganda
• Humor
• Alteration

18.
Coping with fake news is an
information literacy issue.

19.
What percentage of the students/patrons you
teach/assist badly overestimate their ability to
evaluate information?
A. 80% to 100%
B. 60% to 79%
C. 40% to 59%
D. Less than 40%

20.
Kruger, Justin, and David Dunning. “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in
Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 77, no. 6 (1999): 1121–34.

21.
Do People Overestimate Their Information Literacy Skills? A
Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence on the Dunning- Kruger
Effect
Khalid Mahmood, University of the Punjab
This systematic review has analyzed 53 English language studies that assessed and compared
peoples’ self-reported and demonstrated information literacy (IL) skills. The objective was to
collect empirical evidence on the existence of Dunning-Kruger Effect in the area of
information literacy. The findings clearly show that this theory works in this area. It is
concluded that there is no calibration in peoples’ perceived and actual IL skills; in most cases
low-performers overestimate their skills in self-assessments. The findings have theoretical and
practical implications for librarians and IL educators.
Mahmood, Khalid. “Do People Overestimate Their Information Literacy Skills? A Systematic
Review of Empirical Evidence on the Dunning-Kruger Effect.” Communications in Information
Literacy 10, no. 2 (2016): 199.

22.
Fake News:
Practical Approaches

23.
Fact Checking

24.
The tools are silos

25.
Who watches the watchmen?

26.
The tricks
• Logical fallacies
• Appeals to emotion
• Us versus them
• Correlation versus
causation
• Misuse of statistics
• Propaganda
• Fake expertise
• No or unreliable
citations
• Misattribution
• Misusing historical facts
• Selective facts
• Altering information

27.
College Rankings

28.
• Lazy
• Snowflakes
• Participation trophies
• Killing Applebee’s
Millennials:

29.
What Makes a Good Classroom
Example of Fake News?
• Relevant to students.
• Not necessarily a hot-button
topic.
• More credible and less-credible
sources weighing in.

30.
Moon Landing Never Happened

31.
Should librarians avoid hot-
button issues when teaching
about fake news?
• Yes
• No
• Undecided

32.
Address the
emotional component

33.
Anger

34.
Trolling

35.
Fear

36.
Joy

37.
Smug

38.
Confirmation Bias

39.
• Rate of new information being produced
• Continuous news culture (speed over quality)
• Ease of duplication and transmission
• More channels of incoming information
• Ever-increasing amounts of historical information to
dig through
• Contradictions and inaccuracies in available
information
• A low signal-to-noise ratio
• No method for comparing and processing different
kinds of information
• Information unrelated or lacking context
Information Overload

40.
Disrupting the Curriculum:
Deep Critical Thinking

41.
• Authority Is Constructed and Contextua
• Information Creation as a Process
• Information Has Value
• Research as Inquiry
• Scholarship as Conversation
• Searching as Strategic Exploration

42.
• Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
• Information Creation as a Process
• Information Has Value
• Research as Inquiry
• Scholarship as Conversation
• Searching as Strategic Exploration
Framework for Information Literacy for
Higher Education
Credibility and applicability of most information is not an either/or proposition.

43.
“Through these collaborations, there is opportunity to
discuss information literacy not as just a set of mechanical
skills but rather as a discipline with core concepts and dispositions.”
“Apprenticing Researchers: Exploring Upper-Division Students’ Information Literacy Competencies,
Challenges, Dispositions and Development.” Work in progress by Sara L. Davidson Squibb and Anne Zanzucchi.

44.
Evaluating information is a risk proposition

45.
Low risk High risk

46.
• Facebook flagging fake news stories.
• EBay founder commits $100 million to combat 'fake news’
• Google fact-check labels
• Will it ever be enough?
Are getting any help?

47.
• Evaluating information needs to be taught
across the curriculum.
• Evaluating information needs to start early.
• Teach learners to think about information both
rationally and emotionally.
• Library associations and schools must make
teaching students to evaluate information a
priority.
Pushing back against fake news

48.
An alternative history

49.
Actual examples of pro-
smoking memes.

50.
N.B.: Not actual examples of fake news. Created by Donald Barclay for this presentation.

51.
N.B.: Not actual examples of fake news. Created by Donald Barclay for this presentation.

52.
Five false conclusions contained in
the Surgeon General’s report.
You’ll be amazed. . . .
Have you seen the ten reasons why
cigarettes cannot possibly cause cancer?
Smoke out the facts. . . .
N.B.: Not an actual example of fake news. Created by Donald Barclay for this presentation.

53.
P.H.S. Scientists Caught Admitting Cancer-Smoking Link Is a Hoax
2,345,324 views
N.B.: Not an actual example of fake news. Created by Donald Barclay for this presentation.

54.
Have you completed research on the so-called “link”
between smoking and cancer and want to publish in a
TRUSTED HIGH-IMPACT JOURNAL?!!!
Good news for authors!
The Journal of Tobacco and Science
is looking for papers.
Submit multiple articles and get up to 50% off author publication charges.
Subsidies covering up to 125% of author publication
charges are available for qualifying articles.
N.B.: Not an actual example of fake news. Created by Donald Barclay for this presentation.

55.
N.B.: Not an actual example of fake news. Created by Donald Barclay for this presentation.

56.
Non-alternative history

57.
Following the US Surgeon General’s report of
January 1964, Howard Cullman, a Philip Morris
director, dismissed the findings:
“We don’t accept the idea that there
are harmful agents in tobacco.”

58.
Donald A. Barclay
University of California, Merced Library
dbarclay@ucmerced.edu