Battling Misinformation through Community

By JOYA SAXENA

The Weissberg Program in Human Rights & Social Justice at Beloit College seeks to empower students to tackle global issues in a myriad of ways. One way to do this is through facilitating conversations about issues that affect our communities. 

The Weissberg Program does this yearly by centering its focus around a theme. This year’s theme is Misinformation & Media Literacy. Thus far, we have had two keynote speakers who have shared their work on Media Literacy with the Beloit College community: the Ousley Scholar-in-Residence Ashlyn Sparrow and the Ivan Stone Lecturer Dr. Joseph Keller. 

In addition, the Round Table has featured four Beloit College community leaders across faculty, staff, and students in the Round Table to share their calls to action on how we as a college community can combat misinformation in an interdisciplinary approach. 

I have featured Beloit Student Government President Abhey Singh Guram‘24, Residential Life Program Coordinator Daksha Howard, Beloit Student Government Vice President Raahima Talal‘24, and Career Development Advisor at Career Works Emily Sager.  

For this week’s Weissberg Feature, I am spotlighting two faculty members on campus, Dr. Sonya Maria Johnson, Assistant Professor of Critical Identity Studies, and Dr. Beth Dougherty, Manger Professor of International Relations and the Chair of the Political Science department. 

Dr. Johnson expresses the important steps that we as community members must take. She told me it is important to see ourselves as responsible community members. She shares that assuming responsibility is “the first step of owning that we all contribute to misinformation and disinformation in various ways.”

After assuming responsibility, Dr. Johnson says that we must be curious. She says it is necessary to “be rigorously curious with yourself as to where you might be falling short of seeking out how and where you need to grow.” After that, she says that only then “you can live with purpose in community and in a very different manner.”

So, much reflection of the self as an individual as well as a community member can help both the self and the community. Dr. Johnson finally notes that “it’s appreciating that the self is the one human being you have full control over.”  

Dr. Dougherty warns the Beloit community to not get news from social media platforms. “Too many people are using Facebook, TikTok, and these other platforms for news. There’s no process that those platforms have to go through to vet information the way you have an editorial process at a major newspaper such as the New York Times.” 

The internet is at your fingertips, there is a lot of information out there and it is important to strive for knowledge, as well as be active and skeptical with what you are interacting with.