Master of Information: Skills for Lifelong Learning and Resisting Misinformation

By Meredith Butts

In this age, media is all around us, and many of us spend much of our time throughout the day getting exposure to some sort of media. All of us are “consumers of information,” meaning information has become a commodity. As a result, only people with access to resources are able to get quality information; the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves. In a world where good information is hard to come by and misinformation supported by certain agendas is nearly impossible to escape, how can we be sure that we’re learning good information and effectively resisting the bad?

In Master of Information: Skills for Lifelong Learning and Resisting Misinformation, an audio course from Scribd Coach, library and information scientist/media literacy advocate Meredith Butts explains how you can wield critical thinking skills, proper research, and existing resources to avoid falling prey to misinformation and improve your media diet. In the course, Butts offers an overview of the current media landscape and the importance of media literacy, explains how to conduct research like a pro, and shares how to evaluate any source for hidden bias and misinformation. She also shares exercises along the way so you can begin putting what you’ve learned into practice.

Whether you’re a long-time media enthusiast or this is your first introduction to media literacy, there are new, essential insights in Master of Information for all listeners that will help improve your relationship with media. Dive in and become a master of resisting misinformation!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribd Coach
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094436326

Meredith Butts

Meredith Butts is a library and information scientist, and founder-owner of The Information Chase. Through professional and community pursuits, she advocates for information literacy and promotes greater inclusivity, diversity and equity for all. She specializes in knowledge and information management, critical analysis and reporting, and strategic research and insights, and provides media and information literacy services and seminars. Butts’s work is guided by the philosophy that quality education leads to a well-informed citizenry; a well-informed citizenry sustains a healthy democracy; and a healthy democracy supports quality education. To learn more about Meredith’s work, visit her website, TheInformationChase.com, or find her on Twitter (@TheInfoChase) or Medium (@Meredith_ChasingInfo)

Book preview

Master of Information

MASTER OF INFORMATION

Skills for Lifelong Learning and Resisting Misinformation

MEREDITH BUTTS

SCRIBD COACH

Copyright © 2022 by Meredith Butts

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9781094436326

First e-book edition: February 2022

Scribd, Inc.

San Francisco, California

Scribd.com

For more, visit www.scribd.com and follow @Scribd on Twitter and Facebook.

About Scribd Coach

This ebook is brought to you by Scribd Coach, a new imprint from Scribd dedicated to short-form, inclusive, and insightful personal and professional growth courses written by recognized experts.

Each Scribd Coach course is available in audiobook format or as an ebook transcribed from the audio course — like the book you’re about to read. If you’re interested in the audio edition of this course, or if you’d like to read more personal growth content from Scribd Coach, check out the Scribd Coach imprint page. 

You can share your thoughts on this title by rating and leaving a review on the book page. Thanks for reading — enjoy!

Introduction

Hello, everyone! My name is Meredith Butts, the author of this course. Welcome to Master of Information: Skills for Lifelong Learning and Resisting Misinformation, a course from Scribd. I’m glad to have you with me today for this important topic.

We are living in an age where media is all around us. Despite the power that media wields, we often don’t have the tools to understand which media sources deserves our attention. We’re going to be focused on the tools you need to interact with media successfully in this course. But first, let’s get a background of the media landscape today.

When we talk about people engaging with media, they are often referred to as consumers of information. And if you think about media consumption in the same way you might think about food consumption, there are a lot of parallels. A healthy, balanced selection of information nourishes our brain in the same way that a healthy, balanced selection of food nourishes our bodies. 

But there is also a darker side to the phrase consumers of information. It ties consumerism into the information cycle. And unfortunately, this meaning also makes sense. Information has become a commodity. Producing information costs money, and those costs are passed on to the buyer. In this scenario, the people who have resources like money and time are able to get better information. Everyone else is left with substandard information scraps. But accessing quality information should not be available only to a select group. Information shapes our world and access to it should be free for all.

Information is important for how it can change our lives and the world around us. But, in this vein, it can also be used for ill intent as a weapon. Misinformation is the unintentional spreading of bad information. Disinformation spreads bad information intentionally. Both are dangerous for the real-world effects that can take place based on that bad information. For instance, imagine your doctor told you that the only way to fix your broken toe is to amputate your foot. That bad information could have horrible consequences for you if you don’t realize it’s bad information.

People are better off when we have access to