Libraries, Post-Truth (Lauren Mesley Blog Post #8)

[image source]
 

The spread of conspiracy theories online is a fascinating problem, and one that is indicative of a larger phenomenon: post-truth. Researchers Anatoliy Gruzd and Philip Mai published a paper in mid 2020 where they examined how the conspiracy theory tied to the hashtag #FilmYourHospital went viral. This social campaign encouraged users to break quarantine in the early days of the pandemic to film empty parking lots and waiting rooms in their local hospitals to prove that COVID-19 was a hoax. Of course there are many reasons why hospital parking lots and waiting rooms would be empty during a global pandemic—namely because they had closed their doors to visitors and non-emergency appointments to prevent the spread of the virus—but in a post-truth world, this was not a good enough explanation. 

I learned about post-truth recently and I think it’s something that should be more on the radar of libraries. Post-truth is the rising phenomenon of people deciding not to believe facts if their feelings and politics do not align with them. For example, the violent crime rate in America is at a historic low. But right wing politicians are insisting that Americans feel more threatened than ever. Objectively, there is less violent crime, and yet because the "average American" may not feel like there is less crime, government budgeting priorities remain favorable to the police, often at the expense of institutions like libraries. 

I’m not sure how we ended up here, but I do know that this is of interest to information professionals. As librarians, we study and monitor information behavior, but how will that change when people decide that information is false because it doesn’t reflect their lived reality? How will we serve patrons who don’t believe in science? How do we reason with people if we can’t even agree on what is true? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blogging through Social Platforms- Lizzy's First Blog Post

 There are many forms of blogging especially in today's social media world. What started as the world wide web in 1991 turned into many other social media pages to be created. If we truly think about it, all of these social media platforms are different ways of blogging. X  (Twitter) is short blog posts, Facebook is daily updates blogging, Instagram is picture blogging and Zoom is video blogging. That is basically all that these social medias are about. Sharing news, updates in our lives or telling the world news. This world of social media has completely turned our online resources around. The problem is we cannot believe everything we read on the internet, especially with social media platforms. There are many outside sources or fake news that can spread very fast. Fact checking is a new thing now on Facebook. It says that this page was fact checked. But was it really? Social media is widely becoming a major tool in our lives. This does not mean it should consume us. In a wo...
Read more

"Anonymous Member" (Lizzy Sblendorio Post #5)

Image
  The Anonymous Member on the social media app, Facebook, has become a new feature that many like but others do not. With this feature, members of Facebook can comment or post into a group anything under 'anonymous member'. Is this privacy setting too much or is it a good thing. One thing to remember is to never believe everything you read on the internet. What is a puzzle in itself is whether or not that person with a cute profile is actually the real person. What I mean by that is anyone can create a profile on Facebook, how do you know that all of their information is correct? You simply do not. Privacy has become a little too common in my opinion. There are not enough steps to verify your real information. That is why I do not like the anonymous feature on Facebook. What if someone says something hurtful or a threat and they are listed as a anonymous member? Yeah it can trace back to their normal profile but what if that person does not exist. Being invisible is all over so...
Read more

Users of the World, Unite! Review (Zoe Manalo Post #3)

  Users of the World, Unite! What Kaplan & Haenlein Teach Us About Social Media Zoe Manalo (Post #3) For this week I wanted to focus on one of the readings. When we think of social media today, it may feel like it's been around for awhile. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and the list goes on. But back in 2010, Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein published an articled titled Users of the World, Unite! that helped define what social media is and why it matters. Now it's 2025 and their article still shapes how we think about online platforms.  Kaplan and Haenlein described social media as a group of Interned based applications built on the Web 2.0., where users create and share information. They don't just consume what they come across. This shift from doom scrolling, or passive to active participation is what makes social media a tool. Kaplan and Haenlein broke social media into six categories: collaborative projects, blogs and microblog, content communities, social network...
Read more