Wallis, J. (2005) Cyberspace, information literacy and the information society. Library Review, 54 (4). pp. 218-222. ISSN 0024-2535
January 2005
Purpose - To establish that, in the opinion of the author, there is a need for an information literacy skill set for citizens of the modern information society, and that the role of library and information professionals may have to evolve, from intermediaries to facilitators and trainers.
Design/methodology/approach - An opinion piece based on the author's experiences in digital library research, as a citizen of an information society and as a worker in the knowledge economy.
Findings - That citizens of information societies have direct access to a bewildering range of digital information resources. Librarians and information professionals face less demand for their traditional role as intermediaries. Information literacy is defined and described as a vital skill set for citizens of information societies. It is suggested that librarians and information professionals are needed to pass on these skills to citizens at all levels of society for economic, social and personal empowerment.
Research limitations/implications - The paper reflects the perspective of the author, it is not supported by quantitative data (notoriously difficult to collect on information literacy).
Practical implications - Provides suggestions on how the library and information profession can retain their relevance to society in the networked age
Originality/value - This is the particular viewpoint of the author, with a diverse range of examples cited to back up the thrust of the paper. It describes how information literacy is required to interact effectively with the digital environment on an emotional, as well as intellectual level.
The Internet has had a major impact on modern life by facilitating direct interaction between the individual and government, businesses, organisations and other people. The direct nature of this communication has bypassed many of the traditional intermediaries in a multitude of human interactions. New business models capitalise on the ability to interact directly with the customer. Whilst there have been some costly failures, there have been many successes. Furthermore, we can all now become entrepreneurs in the digital economy by using sites such as www.ebay.co.uk to sell direct to other users of networked communications technology.
As ever more communication and the delivery of services take place within a digital environment, there is increasing pressure for citizens of those nations that would like to describe themselves as information societies to be prepared to interact with this medium. This can be empowering, but it can also be bewildering. The online environment is a relatively new phenomenon, which continues to evolve. Martin describes the current state of online interactions as being in transition but as moving towards becoming mainstream, everyday "e-activities" (Martin, 2004). To operate effectively in this online environment, to be able to learn, work, communicate with others, interact with government, shop and for entertainment, we will need a set of skills that will allow us to function with sufficient competence to achieve our goals. Bundy has identified a number of areas that require a new kind of literacy in information intensive societies:
The notion of information literacy, originally conceptualised in the 1970s (Bundy, 2004), is now commonly used to describe the skill set required to interact effectively in the electronic environment. There is some debate as to whether or not this term appropriately describes the skills required by the citizen of the information society. There appears, however, to be a consensus that a variety of literacies are required in order to use networked communication technologies, digital media, online and traditional information resources. Information literacy can be understood as the overarching term to describe the skills needed to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) effectively, and to access appropriate digital information resources.
Whitworth has emphasised the importance of developing generic skills amongst students in relation to technology and information. He suggests an approach that focuses on critical skills, context, autonomy and participation (Whitworth, 2003). It is important that information literacy is not conceptualised in terms of information technology skills. Bundy notes that the most important elements of information literacy are "critical discernment and reasoning", rather than technological fluency (Bundy, 2004).
Given the nature of the information environment, in order to be comfortable with online interactions, we must have some understanding of issues pertaining to the authenticity, context, currency and cost of information. The pervasive nature and ubiquitous use of ICT, combined with the fragmentation of public information space, make for a confusing online information space. Habermas identified the decline of the public sphere more than a decade ago (Whitworth, 2003), referring to the transformation of a public space for open debate and discussion into one manipulated by states and corporations using publicity and marketing. Various factors play off one another to produce today's information environment; the commodification of information, the fragmentation and proliferation of forms and channels of communication, the global media market, the predominance of digital content in the English language and from the United States.
Cyberspace, the cultural and psychological information space created by computer and communications networks, has been conceptualised in both utopian and dystopian terms. Some of the early settlers in cyberspace certainly perceived themselves in those very terms, as settlers of an uncharted frontier. One such "pioneer", John Perry Barlow, is a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/), a non-profit organisation concerned with the protection of digital civil rights. The title of his personal web page (http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/) is the "Barlow Home(stead) Page. Cyberspace has made room for a range of human expression, on a global scale. There is positive self-expression but also aggression and hate. As noted by the editor of this journal (Joint, 2004), insurgents in Iraq have used the Web to communicate their commitment to violence by using it to distribute video footage of the murders of hostages, with horrific emotional impact. At the same time anti-war protesters have used the Web as a vehicle for their point of view (for example http://www.stopwar.org.uk/).
These direct appeals highlight how the Internet has affected the way that we access information. The traditional role of the media as intermediary shifts as the digital revolution continues. The broadcast and print media can be bypassed by using alternative communication channels. Rather than the one perspective on an event offered by an organisation like the British Broadcasting Corporation, there are now many perspectives available to those with access to the Web. This fragmentation challenges those sources traditionally perceived as authentic and authoritative. Such direct appeals can be highly effective in conveying a particular message, a particular point of view. The Zapatista movement in the Chiapas region of Mexico has, for many years, made use of Internet communications to bypass the traditional Mexican media in order to highlight its perspective on the conflict with the Mexican government, to a global audience. Initiatives such as the Independent Media Center (http://www.indymedia.org/en/), which set out to provide alternative news coverage, demonstrate efforts to undermine what has been described by Cleaver as the elite control of information (Cleaver, 1996) and by Chomsky as the manufacture of consent (Chomsky, 1997).
The nature of cyberspace as an information environment is complex and contradictory; anarchic self-expression is juxtaposed with commercial interests, information sharing communities with commercial content providers. It is a networked, virtual environment, which continues to confound attempts to regulate the international flow of information and cultural values that it facilitates. The complexity of this environment might be viewed as an exaggerated representation of the post-modern condition; fragmented, with multiple narratives and individual constructions of meaning. This fusion of cultural zeitgeist, technology and communication condenses into occasional human form. It can be seen, for example, in the bizarrely meaningless (or rather, meaningful) displays of "flash mobbing", where groups of strangers join together to give human substance to momentary online communications (Schmueli, 2003).
Discussion of the nature of cyberspace must not neglect its context. The Internet has evolved out of a continuum of human development. As a cultural artefact, ICT reflects the society and the power structures that have shaped it. Its usage is predominantly for commercial purposes in comparatively wealthy societies. Utopian visions of cyberspace must be tempered with the knowledge that half of the world's population has never made a telephone call. There are digital divides on both global and regional scales. Whilst ICT can play a significant role in economic development, even in comparatively wealthy nations its simple existence will not alter the poverty of aspiration that can be found in marginalized communities. As noted by Bundy,
"Sheer abundance of information and technology will not in itself create more informed citizens without a complimentary understanding and capacity to use information effectively." (Bundy, 2004)So, we return to the need for a set of skills that can enable people to navigate through this complex information environment, and to make use of technology and information as resources for self-empowerment. Lifelong learning is likely to be on the social and political agenda of many nations for the foreseeable future. Information literacy is an important component of this agenda.
The direct access to the complex information environment described above necessitates a change in the role of librarians and information professionals, from gatekeepers to guides. Given the demands of the knowledge society the librarian must support learning at all levels. The need for all citizens to develop a skill set of technological and media literacies means that librarians will have to be incorporated into learning programmes to teach these abilities. Librarians can teach generic skills in how to access information through a variety of media whilst emphasising an understanding of issues around its validity, authenticity and currency. Information literacy programmes can inculcate good principles in the fundamental skills of information use in the knowledge society.
However, the anomalous state of knowledge identified by Belkin et al will always remain true,
"an information need arises from a recognised anomaly in the user's state of knowledge concerning some topic or situation, and that, in general, the user is unable to specify precisely what is needed to resolve that anomaly." (Belkin et al, 1982)as illustrated by an alternative formulation of the concept offered by the United States of America's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld:
"there are known knowns, there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns, that is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, there are things we do not know we don't know and each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns." (BBC, 2004)Search engines such as Google (http://www.google.com/) facilitate rough and ready searching of literally millions of information resources of varying quality, yet mediation can help in expressing a user's anomalous state of knowledge (Rumsfeld's known unknowns). Kate Wittenberg, Director of the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia University, has noted the importance of this role, "libraries help people formulate questions as well as find answers [...]. Who will do that in a virtual world?" (Lee, 2004). Librarians can also assist in guiding users to information resources of quality (kite-marked, for example, by peer review). Such resources within educational establishments are usually free at the point of use. This direct access to costly commercial information services exists side by side with freely available online resources. This, combined with the technical layering of virtual information services and sources, through online library catalogues and virtual learning environments, can obscure the cost of obtaining a particular chunk of information, as well as cloaking its origins, to an extent disaggregating it from its context. Information literacy allows for this decontextualisation by emphasising that information often has to be synthesised with a wider body of knowledge in order to be useful.
For Bundy, information literacy also incorporates an understanding of both the benefit and the cost of acquiring a particular piece of information (Bundy, 2004). The nature of the early development of the Web, informal and ad hoc with costs covered indirectly, has created a pervasive sense of information as a free, somehow naturally occurring, resource. However, the online delivery of information has significant cost implications (Nielsen, 2000), as do the processes that guarantee information quality (research, peer review, editorial scrutiny).
The complexity of the information environment, and of cyberspace as a cultural and emotional experience, presents citizens of the 21st century information society with particular challenges. Vast amounts of finance are poured into the development of new technologies for delivering information and communication in ever more sophisticated ways. Comparative investment in information literacy training, at all levels of society, would act as a recognition of the challenge that individuals face in interacting with this technology, and with the information environment, in order to reach their full potential.
Received 6 January 2005
Reviewed 10 January 2005
Revised 21 January 2005
Accepted 27 January 2005
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