Negotiating (dis)Trust to Advance Democracy through Media and Information Literacy

Abstract

The new media environment, through multitudinous entanglements with processes of digitization and commodification, has contributed to the formation of extreme distrust in media and institutions in advanced democracies, and fluctuations in trust relations worldwide, according to Pew Research and Gallup polling. Resulting from threats of fake news, the overabundance of information, and intentional misguidance by bad actors, individuals find it increasingly difficult to evaluate information and make informed decisions. Ideally, in democracies, institutions help foster trust between citizens and information sources by encouraging trustworthy institutions that are responsible to citizens, since trust is so fundamental to a functional democracy. This paper draws a link between trust, which is crucial to democracy, and media and information literacy (MIL), which empowers democratic principles, to suggest how the implicit reciprocity and negotiability of trust relations can be seized to advance democratization through a media and information literacy policy framework. Using the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Policy and Strategy Guideline as a reference, this paper builds an approach to show how, through the negotiability of trust, MIL and the democratizing principle of civic agency might be concurrently advanced and mutually reinforcing by educating a citizenry more literate about media and information systems and generating democratic institutional change concurrent with greater trust between actors.