Main Text
Revista Latina de Comunicación Social
ISSN 1138-5820
Ideología política, populismo, alfabetización informacional y pensamiento crítico: desafíos para el futuro profesorado
Lydia Sánchez.
lsanchezg@ub.edu
Sergio Villanueva Baselga.
sergio.villanueva@ub.edu
adrienfaure@ub.edu
This work is the result of the R+D+I project "Media education and the information diet as indicators of the capacity for critical analysis of information content in future teachers" (MEDIA4Teach, PID2019-107748RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), which has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain.
How to cite this article
Revista Latina de Comunicación Social
https://doi.org/10.4185/rlcs-2024-2268
ABSTRACT
Introduction: In today's democratic societies, the different phenomena of information disorders, as well as the addictive and harmful use of content and media, especially digital media, have only increased the need for training in this area. The aim of this work is to study the incidence of political positioning and the tendency to populism on the information literacy index, the self-perception of critical thinking (SCT) and the ability to detect fake news, in students of the Master's Degree in Teacher Training in Secondary Education in Spain; an essential group in the training of future citizens capable of critically using information and media content. Methodology: The data were collected by means of a questionnaire applied to 716 students of this master's degree at 15 universities in Spain. These data were statistically analyzed using SPSS. Results: The results show that populist people have a lower level of information literacy than non-populist people; also, it is observed that people who are politically further to the left have a better level of SCT and a higher number of hits in detecting fake news, while populism does not seem to influence either of these last two variables. Conclusions: The need to address these dimensions separately in teacher training is emphasized, as well as the fact that information literacy and critical thinking, although valuable, do not guarantee complete protection against misinformation and populist discourse due to the prevalence of emotions in human cognition.
Keywords:
RESUMEN
Introducción: En las sociedades democráticas actuales, los diferentes fenómenos de desórdenes informativos, así como el uso adictivo y perjudicial de contenidos y medios de comunicación, especialmente los digitales, no ha hecho más que incrementar la necesidad de formación en este ámbito. El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar la incidencia del posicionamiento político y la tendencia al populismo sobre el índice de alfabetización informacional, la autopercepción de pensamiento crítico (APC) y la capacidad para detectar noticias falsas, en estudiantes de Máster de Formación del profesorado de Educación Secundaria en España; un colectivo esencial en la formación de futuros ciudadanos capaces de usar críticamente la información y los contenidos mediáticos.
Metodología: Los datos se han recopilado a través de un cuestionario, aplicado a 716 estudiantes de dicho máster, en 15 universidades del territorio español. Estos datos se han analizado estadísticamente mediante SPSS.
Resultados: Los resultados muestran que las personas populistas tienen un nivel menor de alfabetización informacional que las no populistas; también, se observa que las personas que se sitúan políticamente más a la izquierda tienen un mejor nivel de APC y una mayor cantidad de aciertos en la detección de noticias falsas, mientras que el populismo no parece influir en ninguna de estas dos últimas variables. Conclusiones: Se destaca la necesidad de abordar por separado estas dimensiones, en la formación del profesorado, y que la alfabetización informacional y el pensamiento crítico, aunque valiosos, no garantizan una protección completa contra la desinformación y el discurso populista debido a la preeminencia de las emociones en la cognición humana.
Palabras clave:
1. INTRODUCTION
Muller (2016) defines it as a type of political identity critical of the elites, anti-plural and moralistic, which poses a serious danger to democracy; MerKley (2020) relates it to three characteristics: anti-pluralism, anti-elite and anti-experts; Laclau (2005) and Espí (2019) say that it refers to political currents that mobilize citizens based on emotional discourses.
Given the nature of the political praxis promoted by populism, it seems clear that populist discourse will have to be more passionate than rational, and that it would have to give priority to information capable of mobilizing emotions over that which contains arguments or truthful data. It also seems clear that, because of its dichotomous vision of society, populism would prefer a simple and direct type of communication, avoiding technicalities and presenting two well-defined sides to each social problem, whose confrontation is irresolvable. (Marciel, 2022, p.7)
It is now being said that we live in a post-truth era in which audiences are more likely to believe information that appeals to emotions or existing personal beliefs, as opposed to seeking and readily accepting information regarded as factual or objective (Cooke, 2017, p.212).
And when the facts do not support the beliefs, then the postulation of "alternative facts" is resorted to.
Tools have also been created to train teachers (and the general population) in MIL, such as,
https://learntocheck.org/en/
https://newslit.org/
https://cor.stanford.edu/
https://desfake.cat/
2. OBJECTIVE
For this purpose, the following specific objectives have been set:
    3. METHODOLOGY
    3
    3.1. Participants and recruitment
    Students of the Master's Degree in Teacher Training who have studied ESO under LOE
    3.3. Measures
    3.3.1. Sociodemographic variables
    Participants answered 13 questions that included information about their age, gender, employment status, country and region of birth, educational level -both their parents' and their own-, information about their secondary education, and the specialization in the master's program for secondary teacher training they were pursuing. These variables were designed specifically for the study. Chart 6 with the overall results of the sample can be found in Annex I.
    3.3.2. Independent variables
    Chart 1. Distribution of ideological positioning.
    Source:
    Chart 2. Distribution of the tendency to populism.
    Source:
    3.3.3. Dependent variables
    The instrument is an adjustment to the Spanish version of a previous five-item scale
    Variable collected by means of the 5-item scale defined by
    and adapted to Spanish:
    4. RESULTS
    4
    4.3. Influence on the Self-perception of Critical Thinking (SCT)
    Chart 3. Distribution of SCT and dependent relationship with Ideological position and Populism.
    Source:
    4.4. Influence on fake news detection
    Chart 4. Levels of failure and success for the 5 news items (the only true news item was (1), while the rest were fake).
    Source:
    Chart 5. Correlation between the level of accuracy and ideological positioning (shown as arithmetic mean) and populism (shown as percentages). The * show statistically significant relationships.
    Source:
    5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
    The explanation for this may lie in the fact that populism implies scientific skepticism and discrediting of information sources and expert opinion
    We also see that populism and ideology do not generate the same statistical relationships, therefore, this study reaffirms the position that both dimensions must be separated and that populism can occur in both ideological spectrums, in line with other studies (
    , 2016; Tarragoni, 2021).
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    AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS, FUNDING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Authors’ contributions:
    Conceptualization:
    Software:
    Validation:
    Formal analysis:
    Data curation:
    Drafting-Preparation of the original draft:
    Drafting-Revision and Editing:
    Visualization:
    Supervision:
    Project management:
    All authors have read and accepted the published version of the manuscript:
    Funding:
    Acknowledgments: This work is the outcome of the research project "Media education and information diet as indicators of the capacity for critical analysis of information content in aspiring teachers" (MEDIA4Teach, PID2019-107748RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), approved in the 2019 call for R&D&I Projects - RTI Type B, within the framework of the state programs for knowledge generation and scientific and technological strengthening of the R&D&I system oriented to the challenges of society.
    AUTHORS:
    Lydia Sánchez
    University
    lsanchezg@ub.edu
    Índice H:
    Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7814-0087
    Scopus ID: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57222320756
    Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.es/...j7XEAAAAJ&hl=es&oi=ao
    ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/...le/Lydia-Sanchez-2
    Sergio Villanueva Baselga
    sergio.villanueva@ub.edu
    Índice H:
    Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4447-151X
    Scopus ID: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57127214300
    Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.es/...er=KCh6tFIAAAAJ&hl=es
    Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/...Villanueva-Baselga
    Adrien Faure-Carvallo
    adrienfaure@ub.edu
    Índice H:
    Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6065-5186
    Scopus ID: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57219053218
    Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.es/...er=ldeepkMAAAAJ&hl=es
    ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/...ien-Faure-Carvallo
    ANNEXES
    Annexo I. Chart 6.
    Sociodemographic profile of the sample.
    Source:
    Related articles:
    García-Marín, D. (2021). Las fake news y los periodistas de la generación z. Soluciones post-millennial contra la desinformación. Vivat Academia, Revista de Comunicación., 154, 37-63. https://doi.org/10.15178/va.2021.154.e1324
    Martínez-Pinto, P., Ganga-Contreras, F. y Brkovic Leighton, M. (2020). Pensamiento Crítico pluralista: el reconocimiento intercultural en el proceso educativo. Revista Espacios, 41(20), 309-317. https://www.revistaespacios.com/...20v41n20p25.pdf
    Martínez-Sánchez, J. A. (2022). Prevención de la difusión de fake news y bulos durante la pandemia de COVID-19 en España. De la penalización al impulso de la alfabetización informacional. Revista de Ciencias de la Comunicación e Información, 27, 15-32. https://doi.org/10.35742/rcci.2022.27.e236
    Toro González, S. y Pérez-Curiel, C. (2021). Populismo político en tiempos de COVID. Análisis de la estrategia de comunicación de Donald Trump y Boris Johnson en Twitter. Revista de Comunicación de la SEECI, 54, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.15198/seeci.2021.54.e700
    [1] C
    [2] Basic General Education
    Main Text
    Ideología política, populismo, alfabetización informacional y pensamiento crítico: desafíos para el futuro profesorado
    ABSTRACT
    RESUMEN
    1. INTRODUCTION
    2. OBJECTIVE
    3. METHODOLOGY
    3.1. Participants and recruitment
    3.3. Measures
    3.3.1. Sociodemographic variables
    3.3.2. Independent variables
    3.3.3. Dependent variables
    4. RESULTS
    4.3. Influence on the Self-perception of Critical Thinking (SCT)
    4.4. Influence on fake news detection
    5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
    6. REFERENCES
    AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS, FUNDING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    AUTHORS:
    Related articles:
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