Many of the components of the mainstream discussions about the role of “fake news” in the wake of the 2016 U.S. elections should be familiar to librarians. Questions about authorized and/or authoritative sources, bias, and fact-checking from multiple sources are part of the instructional package of many information literacy programs. The profession has many models of information literacy instruction, from the recently-updated ACRL Framework for Higher Education to the Big6 skill set targeted to K-12 students. These models assume that librarians can perform critical interventions to information-seeking behavior that can take effect beyond the school setting.
This brought to my mind the work of Dr. Elfreda Chatman, a professor at the School of Information Studies at Florida State University who specialized in ethnographic research on the information-seeking behaviors of marginalized groups, including prisoners and the elderly. Her research eventually led her to formulate a theory of information poverty, based on socioeconomic status.