Information literacy & media literacy
(plus accessing news at Swarthmore)

Simon Elichko (they/them)

Social Sciences & Data Librarian

appointments bit.ly/selichk1 | McCabe 114

Popularity of each term over time, according to Google Ngram Viewer, an imperfect measure of how often each term appears in the Google Books corpus.

(See what happens when you add Computer Literacy to the graph.)

Media literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, data literacy...

• At this point, these literacies are discussed across a range of fields and contexts (inside and beyond higher education)

• Discussions around these concepts developed (to some extent) within particular academic disciplines and professional communities

• These discussions continue to reflect the interests, priorities, and standpoints of those fields to varying degrees

  • Media literacy -- communication and media studies (also educational studies, journalism)

  • Information literacy -- library and information science

  • Computer literacy -- information science, computer science (but also educational studies)

Media literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, data literacy...

Some key elements of these concepts

UNESCO (2021), Media and information literate citizens curriculum.

Information literacy as it relates to politics

• In US higher education, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) released the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in 2015
   
• In 2020, the political science librarians section of ACRL released a companion document for the 2015 framework, articulating information literacy learning goals for political science and related fields

Accessing news through

the libraries

News & Magazines Guide (Swarthmore)

• Go to Tripod tripod.swarthmore.edu
• Click the link: Research Guides
• Then search for: news swarthmore

Research guide for POLS 91SR

• https://guides.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/pols091sr
• includes Simon's contact info
   

Cover image credit: NYPL