Author-ity

“Authority” is, in general, a perhaps dubious term in a secondary school library context because there are at least a couple of things happening with regards to “authority” and “teens”: first, teens, by nature, tend to enjoy challenging authority, and secondly, the Internet creates a scenario where teens—or any human being, for that matter—can now access information themselves (rather than digesting information that is furnished solely by a textbook or a teacher) and/or create and publish information themselves. This access to virtually limitless content changes classroom dynamics: the teacher is less of a direct instructor and much more of a facilitator. This scenario very quickly changes traditional classroom authority dynamics, which in turn leads to a need for greater emphasis on information literacy—begging such questions as “What is authority and why does it matter?” and “Who has authority?” and “How can I wisely determine authority?”

Now, certainly we know that “authority” is not meant to suggest stronger/weaker, leader/follower power dynamics per se. Authority, of course, refers to the credibility of an author or source—“author-ity.” However, it is interesting, as an English teacher and library user, to see ways in which authority is being interpreted by students today.

Authority is very often confused with popularity. This is an easy mistake for human beings—particularly teens?—to make: the more we hear about and/or discuss something, the more credibility or authority it tends to embody. As legends grow stronger and more intriguing with each retelling, so does content gain more authority each time it is referenced. As my advanced biology students recently told me in one of our English class discussions regarding persuasion, “Proximity creates fondness”; this seems convincingly true in both the animal world as well as the world of content and media.

The “authority is popularity” rule is seen in the ubiquity of Google and the way in which the search engine organizes its search results: the most often visited—or most popular—websites appear near the top of a search result. While it is true that there are many factors that contribute to search results, Page Ranking is one important factor. As noted by Google itself: “Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site's PageRank." Further, we all know that very often it is only the first page of results from a Google search that is looked at by a user. The details of how PageRank works are not so important; it is enough simply to note that the very way in which our most popular search engine today operates serves to blur a high school student’s everyday perception of what is important, what is popular, what has authority.

Happily, I find that, with some coaching, students can become very information literate—quite adept at skillfully determining what is authoritative and why. However, it can be a challenge to encounter a, say, sixteen year old digital native student who has had no exposure to information literacy. These students sometimes don’t understand how to wisely judge authority or don’t want to have to wisely understand authority—because doing so means changing the way he or she thinks, changing the ways of his or her online life that have become very comfortable relying on content from Youtube or Google as “answers.”

A great way to show students that there is a very real need to become information literate—and to possess skills that allow them to wisely judge authority—is to introduce them to “spoof” websites. Find a way to integrate a site (or sites) into your curriculum and see what the results are: how long does it take students to recognize something “fishy” is happening? Who notices first? Who doesn’t notice? How long does it take students to start extrapolating and realizing how important ideas like authority, reliability, and credibility are when roaming the World Wide Web—a place that is still in many ways in its free-wheeling Wild West phase. Some of my favorite spoof sites include “Feline Reactions to Bearded Men” and the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. See my blog post for a fuller list with links.

At the end of the day, it is simply interesting to watch the ways in which all people—but particularly young people (high school students)—have an evolving sense of what “authority” means, and how that sense is tied to advancements in the areas of technology and media and in the processes of how content is created and delivered.

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