Information Literacy and Democracy (IDE)

Nowadays it is very easy to search for and find information. However, accessing information effortlessly is not to be confused with self-determined and well-founded handling of knowledge. Algorithm-based information procurement and -provision today is difficult for users to understand neither on the actor level nor with regard to technical mechanisms of action. Studies in Information Literacy point to considerable deficits in this area. 

The Information Literacy and Democracy (IDE) project aims to raise awareness of the problem in Lower Saxony. The project will provide a forum for the public to discuss the issue and solutions to the problems identified in the area of Information Literacy. The aim is to position the topic among professionals and the public as a critical issue of the 21st century. To this end, different groups of actors will be brought together in order to gain as comprehensive a picture as possible of the subject area, the perceived problem areas and solution perspectives, particularly for the education sector. 

The project is funded by the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony within the framework of the call for proposals “Future Discourses” funded by the Niedersächsischen Vorab. 

For this interdisciplinary project in the areas of Information Science, Linguistics and Language Teaching, we are organizing two conferences. The first conference already took place in October 2019. People from different disciplines, such as information science, librarianship, education and journalism from Germany attended. The conference program October 2019 (german) is available here.

The second conference will take place on 19th and 20th June 2020. There will be international speakers. Topics of discussion will include approaches to multiliteracies and critical literacy teaching.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us: infodem[at]uni-hildesheim.de  


Further information about the conference: