Resisting the Post-truth Funhouse Mirror: Emancipatory Media and Information Literacies

Abstract

Media and information literacy (MIL) holds much potential to foster critical thinking, communication and transcultural capacities needed for global competence in a time of post-truth. MIL is often presented as a solution to the current destabilizing culture of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracism, but its methods can backfire, and it can be co-opted in ways that serve oppressive agendas. The current crisis in truth, trust, institutions and MIL calls for a radical rethinking of educational approaches. I advocate for a re-envisioning that draws upon emancipatory, critical race and anticolonial media and information literacies directed at creating a better, more just world for everyone. These intersectional, multiliteracy, holistic and anti-oppression commitments offer a hope-based response to the information crisis and the colonizing and racialized narratives that are at the core of our post-truth era.