Information Disorder, Media Literacy, and the Crisis of Trust in Knowledge Institutions
Abstract
The past decade has seen a sharp rise in misinformation, disinformation, and what scholars have termed information disorder, a concept that captures not only the spread of false content but the broader breakdown of shared epistemic ground. At the same time, public trust in journalism, science, government, and higher education has declined measurably across much of the world. This mixed conceptual and literature review paper examines the relationship between these two phenomena and what role media literacy education might realistically play in addressing them.
Drawing on Wardle and Derakhshan's (2017) tripartite typology of information disorder, alongside research in cognitive psychology, political communication, and education, this paper argues that the trust crisis is both a cause and a consequence of information disorder, not simply a background condition. People who have lost confidence in knowledge institutions are more likely to reject factual corrections and gravitate toward sources that confirm existing beliefs. Media literacy, as traditionally taught, was designed for a different media environment and shows meaningful limitations in the current context, as danah boyd (2017) and others have noted.
The paper proposes moving beyond source evaluation and fact-checking toward what this analysis terms epistemic resilience: the capacity to hold uncertainty productively, recognize manipulation strategies, and maintain confidence in verifiable knowledge processes rather than in any single institution. This reconceptualized approach draws on lateral reading research, psychological inoculation theory, and civic reasoning education.Keywords
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