Disinformation and library courses at public universities in the State of São Paulo: an analysis of pedagogical projects and the opinion of teachers

Abstract

With the advancement of technology and the use of social networks, the spread of disinformation and fake news has intensified. These issues have received increasing attention in democratic public debate. The discussion about these themes in the academic field, especially in relation to the qualification of librarians, responsible for the mediation of information, becomes fundamental to understand if future professionals are qualified to work with disinformation in their professional performance. Therefore, this article has the general objective of finding out if and how public universities in the State of São Paulo that offer the Librarianship course address issues related to misinformation. To achieve the objectives, a qualitative-quantitative research was carried out, based on a literature review on the concepts "disinformation" and "fake news", later, a mixed questionnaire was prepared and sent to the faculty of universities. To analyze the results obtained, the Collective Subject Discourse methodology was used. The bibliographic review combined with the questionnaire allowed us to understand if and how the Librarianship courses at the chosen institutions address the aforementioned topics. It was found that among the universities of the State of São Paulo, there is no offer of a discipline whose objective is to address disinformation and fake news, despite this, there is an approach and debate in the classroom in other disciplines of the course. Therefore, it is noted that teachers have continued education and have knowledge about misinformation and fake news, both in terms of identification and coping strategies. Despite this, these universities need to be updated to include disciplines in their curriculum that are able to meet the emerging demands of society and the profession.