Information profession has been transformed over the last twenty years following new trends with a drastic shift in the ways people receive and communicate information. It brought new insights together with some issues that information professionals try to overcome. One of such issues is misinformation in social media. 

What is misinformation 

Zeng and Babwah Brennen (2023) conducted a literature review looking at the definition of misinformations. Despite a variety of definitions, many scholars agree about its falsity and inaccuracy when defining misinformation as well as the lack of intention in spreading false information. This means that people who spread misinformation do not have an intent to impact someone’s views in a negative way or change someone else’s attitudes towards something. 

Research into misinformation attracted huge attention with the spread of Internet technologies and online communication. Omoregie and Ryall (2023) shared a concern that online content can be created and consumed in real time without much control since the web was originally intended to be an open platform. However, it is claimed that certain features of social media platforms facilitate misinformation (Zeng & Babwah Brennen, 2023). For example “like” and “share” features that create engagement and promote spreading of information further. This brings another concern about social media, such as its ability to affect behaviour of users and their attitudes by forming misleading beliefs, which might be harmful for their well being (Southwell et al., 2018). 

How people consume and share information online 

Discussing social media and misinformation, Alfred Hermida (2019) points out that when using social media, people pursue the purpose of expressing their identity and showing who they are. The majority of discussions made by people on social media are based on their self identity and what they care about. People share information to build good social connections by entertaining others. When they post something, they do not check whether the information is true or false, they think of what impression this information will make on other people. When identifying information as true or false, people rely largely on their lived experiences. Emotions and empathy are the other two components that contribute to the perception of information people encounter online. People will believe something that they can connect to in what they read and what they feel about it based on their own experience regardless of the evidence proving the information to be fake. Another thing that increases the spread of misinformation is that gossip, in general, is identified as a driver of social interactions (Anggraeni, 2019). Gossiping helps people create closer and more intimate connections as it creates a feeling of thrust between the participants. 

Del Vicario et al.(2016) investigated users’ behaviour online and models of spreading misinformation and concluded that users usually gather in communities  based on their interests which leads to confirmation bias and reinforcement of fake information.  

According to Griefender et al. (2020), people take it for granted that those who share information have a goal of informing others, thus they consider this information truthful and unbiased by default, so people believe everything they read online unless they have a clear reason to be suspicious. 

Impact of misinformation

According to a survey conducted by Statista (2024) in terms of the evolution of digital public spaces in the future, the majority of experts (70%) agreed that digital spaces are developing in ways that are positive and negative at the same time. On the positive side, we get more opportunities to collaborate with other people and learn new things, on the negative side there is misinformation in social media (Ahmadi, 2022). 

Looking at the impact of misinformation on various aspects of our lives, we can highlight such fields as politics, education and healthcare. One vivid example of such an impact was the “fake news crisis” of 2016, when the amount of fake news in Facebook was higher than truthful news regarding the elections of the US president of that year (Rogers, 2023). Looking at the examples from the healthcare sector, the topic with the heist range of misinformation posted online was Caronavirus in 2020 (Statista, 2024), which created a lot of stress and anxiety. 

Finally, in regards to education, the new information environment has changed the way people learn, while having access to endless streams of information and being able to interact with it in social media (Parker et al. 2023). 

Implications to Teacher Librarians through Social Media Information Literacy – 200

With the spread of digital information, teacher librarians focus a lot on information literacy and digital citizenship to make sure students know how to behave online, protect their personal information, search for valuable resources and cite them properly. Now, when we look at statistics on the most popular online activities (Statista, 2021), it becomes clear that using social media outweighs working or studying. Thus, teacher librarians should focus on developing social media literacy as well. In my opinion, the biggest problem is not the number of people who create misinformation at the first instance, but the number of users who repost and share misinformation without checking it. People need to develop skills to critically evaluate the information they face in social media. 

Shu et al. studied how the awareness of the three main features of fake news help people identify misinformation online. They also provided a list of abilities internet users need to obtain in order to become social media information literate: 

Figure 1. Definition of social media information literacy (Shu et al. 2020). 

Figure 1 shows interesting connections between the abilities and reinforces the need to evaluate and re-evaluate information. The researchers concluded that users who are able to differentiate news headlines with the text can also identify elements that are faked, including satirical elements.  

Future developments hold a lot of new possibilities as well as challenges, thus, information professionals need to constantly learn about new technologies to stay up to date and become the leaders of positive change. 

References: 

Ahmadi, E. (2022). Opportunities and threats analysis caused by social media. In M. Ebrahimi (Ed.), Information manipulation and its impact across all industries (pp. 46-64). IGI Global. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.4018/978-1-7998-8235-0.ch003 

Anggraeni, A. (2019). Factors Influencing gossiping behaviour in social chatting platforms. In I. Chiluwa & S. Samoilenko (Eds.), Handbook of research on deception, fake news, and misinformation online (pp. 33-44). IGI Global. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.4018/978-1-5225-8535-0.ch003

Definition of social media information literacy. Reprinted from Disinformation, misinformation, and fake news in social media: Emerging research challenges and opportunities (p. 217), by Shu, K., Wang, S., Lee, D., & Liu, H. (Eds.). 2020. Springer International Publishing. 

Del Vicario, M., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Petroni, F., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., Stanley, H. E., & Quattrociocchi, W. (2016). The spreading of misinformation online. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS, 113(3), 554–559. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517441113 

Greifeneder, R., Jaffe, M., Newman, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (2020). The psychology of fake news: Accepting, sharing, and correcting misinformation (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.4324/9780429295379 

Hermida, A. (Academic). (2019). Alfred Hermida discusses social networks and misinformation [Video]. Sage Research Methods. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526492210

Omoregie, U., & Ryall, K. (2023). Misinformation matters : Online content and quality analysis (1st edition). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003308348

Parker, L., Liu, H., Smith, K. (2023). Pedagogical implications of the new information environment. In L. Parker (eds),  Education in the age of misinformation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Rogers, R. (2023). The propagation of misinformation in social media: A cross-platform analysis. Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720762

Shu, K., Wang, S., Lee, D., & Liu, H. (Eds.). (2020). Disinformation, misinformation, and fake news in social media emerging research: Challenges and opportunities (1st ed.). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42699-6

Southwell, B. G., Thorson, E. A., & Sheble, L. (Eds.). (2018). Misinformation and mass audiences. University of Texas Press.

Statista. (2024). Industry leader opinion on the evolution of digital public spaces leading to a positive or negative future for society worldwide as of August 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1280076/global-future-use-of-digital-spaces-public-good/   

Statista. (2024).  Most popular online activities of adult internet users in the United States as of November 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183910/internet-activities-of-us-users/ 

Statista. (2024). Share of recommended Instagram misinformation posts between September and November 2020, by content. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293258/instagram-recommended-misinformation-by-content/ 

Zeng, J., & Babwah Brennen, S. (2023). Misinformation. Internet Policy Review, 12(Issue 4). https://doi.org/10.14763/2023.4.1725