Abstract
We are now living in an age of “fake news,” which is not a new phenomenon, but its current iteration has highlighted the various dimensions of how people interact (or do not) with information – information consumption is so much more than people’s immediate cognitive processing. This video essay will address some of the colloquial language that can be applied to discussions of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Not only are there numerous words and concepts for misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (e.g., hoaxes, gossip, alternative facts, etc.), there are many phrases, rooted in our visual literacy of color, that can be applied to our understanding of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation and their historical entrenchment in our everyday language. After detailing a variety of colorful applications of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, the essay will present media and information literacy considerations such as people’s emotional reactions to information, political economy, and technology as context that makes misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation instruction and research both complex, challenging, and so interesting.
Keywords
Misinformation, Disinformation, Malinformation, Literacies, Fake News, Lexicon, Information Literacy, Media Literacy, Affective Information Behavior
Key Quotes
- We need to be mindful of the language that’s used to think about and discuss misinformation, disinformation, and malformation.
- Information is fast and cheap, but knowledge is slow and expensive.
- The more context we have about information, the better chance we have of making good decisions with the information we are presented with.
Current Issues
- Media and Information Literacy: Enriching the Teacher/Librarian Dialogue
- The International Media Literacy Research Symposium
- The Human-Algorithmic Question: A Media Literacy Education Exploration
- Education as Storytelling and the Implications for Media Literacy
- Ecomedia Literacy
Leave a Reply