The fragmentation of facts and infrastructural meaning-making : New demands on information literacy
Haider, Jutta LU and Sundin, Olof LU
(2019)
Conceptions of Library and Information Science.
In Information Research
24(4).
- Abstract
- Introduction. This paper presents a theory-driven discussion on the role of facts in society, couched between a brief historical overview and a discussion of the contemporary situation, exemplified in particular by openly available web-based fact services. Implications for the conceptualisation of information literacy – and in particular information literacy in relation to today’s dominant algorithmic information infrastructure – are considered throughout.
Method. This is a conceptual paper where theoretical reasoning is accompanied by examples from a small empirical material. This material consists of the use and observation of three web-based fact services as well as expert interviews with three producers and one user of one of the... (More) - Introduction. This paper presents a theory-driven discussion on the role of facts in society, couched between a brief historical overview and a discussion of the contemporary situation, exemplified in particular by openly available web-based fact services. Implications for the conceptualisation of information literacy – and in particular information literacy in relation to today’s dominant algorithmic information infrastructure – are considered throughout.
Method. This is a conceptual paper where theoretical reasoning is accompanied by examples from a small empirical material. This material consists of the use and observation of three web-based fact services as well as expert interviews with three producers and one user of one of the services. In particular Hannah Arendt’s essay “Truth and politics” is drawn on to contextualise and understand the role of facts in society.
Results. The web-based fact services investigated here facilitate and describe the creation of facts based on open data in a rather traditional way, i.e. by providing references and pointing to sources. However, the established facts are then inserted into today’s networked information landscape, which is an arena for competing knowledge claims working according to the market’s principles of popularity, and this leads to conflicting situations and poses new demands on information literacy.
Conclusions. This paper suggests the need for a view of information literacy that accounts for infrastructural meaning-making at the same time as it enables the political dimensions of the way in which facts and factual information are created and valued in contemporary society to be taken seriously. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/bf5bffbd-60f1-41e7-a050-29576217db29
- author
- Haider, Jutta
LU
and Sundin, Olof
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2019
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- information literacy, facts
- in
- Information Research
- volume
- 24
- issue
- 4
- article number
- colis1923
- publisher
- Thomas Daniel Wilson
- conference name
- Conceptions of Library and Information Science.
- conference location
- Ljubljana, Slovenia
- conference dates
- 2019-06-16 - 2019-06-19
- ISSN
- 1368-1613
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Ljubljana, Slovenia, June 16-19, 2019
- id
- bf5bffbd-60f1-41e7-a050-29576217db29
- alternative location
- http://www.informationr.net/ir/24-4/colis/colis1923.html
- date added to LUP
- 2019-12-17 16:30:53
- date last changed
- 2022-12-15 02:30:55
@article{bf5bffbd-60f1-41e7-a050-29576217db29,
abstract = {{Introduction. This paper presents a theory-driven discussion on the role of facts in society, couched between a brief historical overview and a discussion of the contemporary situation, exemplified in particular by openly available web-based fact services. Implications for the conceptualisation of information literacy – and in particular information literacy in relation to today’s dominant algorithmic information infrastructure – are considered throughout.<br/>Method. This is a conceptual paper where theoretical reasoning is accompanied by examples from a small empirical material. This material consists of the use and observation of three web-based fact services as well as expert interviews with three producers and one user of one of the services. In particular Hannah Arendt’s essay “Truth and politics” is drawn on to contextualise and understand the role of facts in society.<br/>Results. The web-based fact services investigated here facilitate and describe the creation of facts based on open data in a rather traditional way, i.e. by providing references and pointing to sources. However, the established facts are then inserted into today’s networked information landscape, which is an arena for competing knowledge claims working according to the market’s principles of popularity, and this leads to conflicting situations and poses new demands on information literacy.<br/>Conclusions. This paper suggests the need for a view of information literacy that accounts for infrastructural meaning-making at the same time as it enables the political dimensions of the way in which facts and factual information are created and valued in contemporary society to be taken seriously.}},
author = {{Haider, Jutta and Sundin, Olof}},
issn = {{1368-1613}},
keywords = {{information literacy; facts}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{4}},
publisher = {{Thomas Daniel Wilson}},
series = {{Information Research}},
title = {{The fragmentation of facts and infrastructural meaning-making : New demands on information literacy}},
url = {{http://www.informationr.net/ir/24-4/colis/colis1923.html}},
volume = {{24}},
year = {{2019}},
}