Frame It In the News: Teaching Information Literacy Without a Research Paper

Abstract

Librarians struggle to teach information literacy skills to first-year students in courses without a research component. Without a need to know how to consume information, students can disengage from learning. Using news as the frame for IL instruction is a solution. News media outlets have significant power in society. As Masterman (1985) wrote in Teaching the Media, “the media tells us what is important and what is trivial by what they take note of and what they ignore, by what is amplified and what is muted or omitted.” As news media are pervasive institutions concretely entwined with everyday life and require critical analysis for responsible engagement, the news makes for a prodigious frame in which to teach information literacy.