A rainbow Hurricane?: Exploring student evaluations of ambiguously credible tweeted information within crisis contexts

Abstract

During crisis contexts, information is both critical for user’s decision making and simultaneously challenging to evaluate. When online information’s credibility is ambiguous, young learners are challenged to evaluate rapidly evolving online information. This study sought to explore how 8th-grade students evaluated an ambiguously credible Tweet involving an extraordinary image of Hurricane Dorian. Students rated their skepticism about the image, provided a warrant for their rating, and hypothesized a purpose behind the original poster’s tweet. Students demonstrated three approaches to evaluating the tweet: focusing on information content over source, assuming internet-specific authorial purposes, and applying in-school literacies. This study highlights that educators can use ambiguously credible texts to support students in evaluating online information by supporting student equivocation between contradictory content and source credibility.

Keywords:

• Information literacy
• information credibility
• ambiguously credible information
• social media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gillian E. Mertens

Gillian Mertens is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at SUNY Cortland. Her research interests include digital and information literacies, Internet architecture, and the interplay between technology and identity.