The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is
pleased to share a substantial new report from the Youth and Media
project: "Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality" by Urs Gasser, Sandra Cortesi, Momin Malik, & Ashley Lee.
Building upon a process- and context-oriented information quality
framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the
ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information
online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices
of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media
usage, and social patterns affect these activities.
A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media,
youth, and information quality—primarily works from library and
information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic
studies—reveals patterns in youth’s information-seeking behavior, but
also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors
both for search and evaluation. To access the full report and additional
material, please visit: http://youthandmedia.org/projects/information-quality/
Key Findings:
1. Search shapes the quality of information that youth experience online.
2. Youth use cues and heuristics to evaluate quality, especially visual and interactive elements.
3. Content creation and dissemination foster digital fluencies that can feed back into search and evaluation behaviors.
4. Information skills acquired through personal and social activities can benefit learning in the academic context.
"Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality" lays
the foundation and raises questions for further explorations in this
area. The report also encourages a public policy discussion on youth,
digital media, and information quality issues. We hope you will take the
time to review the report, to build upon it, and to share it with
interested colleagues and networks.
We wish to thank all of our wonderful collaborators at the Berkman
Center, our friends at the Harvard Law School Library, and the
participants of a workshop on information quality for their valuable
contributions and their important work in the field. The report builds
upon research enabled by generous grants from the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
As always, we welcome your feedback.
Urs Gasser, John Palfrey, Sandra Cortesi, and the Youth and Media team
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Last updated November 03, 2014
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