Instruction, Regulation, and Solutions for Today’s Information and Political Environment

The Authority File

In the third episode of this four-part series, Dan Chibnall, STEM Librarian & Associate Professor of Librarianship at Drake University, and Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, talk instruction and regulation in the current information landscape. Touching on the importance of media literacy, they stress that contemporary issues of misinformation and untrustworthy news sources require large-scale solutions that go beyond building individual literacy skills. In fact, Nick highlights the need for political campaign guardrails and regulations against technology companies, while Dan posits that a healthy democratic environment requires abandoning bygone legislation and pushing forward policies that better reflect the challenges of today. In addition, Dan compares his instruction tactics since the last time he was on The Authority File in 2020, sharing new strategies such as building reaction habits, finding and becoming a “nerd node,” and calling out epistemic trespassing.

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