The internet makes it possible to find sources of information for any topic you might imagine. Finding sources that will provide answers to questions is easy. Google will provide millions of hits for any search entered. However, finding sources that provide accurate, reliable, authoritative and unbiased infor-mation is another matter altogether.

A study by Stanford University's History Education Group asked US middle school, high school and college students to complete a series of tasks to assess their civic online reasoning. The study found that students, while knowledgeable about the use of technology, lack knowledge about the content they access with this technology. In fact, the report's Executive Summary begins with the general assessment:

Students largely failed to distinguish between native advertisements (advertising that looks like news) and real news; they failed to identify organizations sponsoring websites (whose websites might present a one-sided view of a topic); and they failed to seek out information beyond the initial website about the source of information to determine motives and bias. They failed to source photos and inaccurately relied on images that accompanied text to judge the trustworthiness of an article. They were largely unable to identify the source of a tweet. These deficits point directly to the need for training and education concerning how to evaluate the sources of information that may shape our beliefs about any topic.

Opening up the world of information

Before the internet, people had far fewer choices for sources of information. People accessed traditional trusted sources that acted as gatekeepers to information, such as printed national newspapers, broadcast television stations, magazines known for their in-depth reporting or peer-reviewed journals. These ‘gatekeepers’ controlled the information that was covered but were bound by regulations to present information fairly and without bias. National news sources covered ‘big’ stories, while local news sources covered stories closer to home. Peer-reviewed journals published a small number of articles each year showing advances in research on various topics. Magazines covered a variety of topics and those known for reliable in-depth coverage were the go-to sources for everyday information about the world.