The Active Citizen in a Changing Information Landscape

The Active Citizen in a

Changing Information

Landscape

Bill Johnston, Sheila Webber, Shahd Salha

Limerick, August 2014

Bill Johnston

Active

citizenship

and

Information

Literacy:

setting the

scene

Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

Session Topics

• What is a good citizen?

• Nature of status quo and change

• Information and power relations

• IL described widely and not restricted to text,

documents, digital communications etc.


Education for IL activists:

a framework

• Blend of formal, informal, adult and community lifelong learning

• Experiential and personalized approaches to learning

• Draws on Friere‟s (1970) „pedagogy of the oppressed‟

• Calls for librarians to decide on their degree of commitment to an „activist‟ approach to IL

• Suggests a community of practice amongst like-minded librarians, educators and activists.


Sheila Webber

Active

citizenship in

health literacy


The good “active citizen” in health? Will vary between countries; am taking a UK focus

• Government messages

– Use the web, rather than interact with expensive human

beings

– Take whatever medicines and follow whatever lifestyle

currently recommended e.g.

• Statins

• 5 a day (or is it 7)

– Listen to, or read, information and then make a “choice”

– Give up personal data whenever asked

So that you .....

• Save the country‟s money by not getting ill

• Boost the profits of the UK pharmaceutical industry, but

• Do not demand the expensive drugs (that might have fewer side effects...)

• Help the system to work efficiently

• Do not waste healthcare workers time by arguing with them

n.b. I must put in the caveat that although it has flaws I am still a fan of a national health service!

care-data (National Health Service patient records database)

“Better information

means better care”

Distributed leaflets

“presumed consent in a

decidedly offhand

fashion” Telegraph View

(2014)

“The approach in your publicity leaflet does not help your claim for trustworthiness. The

reader needs to take a `forensic` approach to read between the lines to try to understand what it is saying about the release of confidential data.” Comment on the

NHS blog post in which “Dr Geraint Lewis, NHS England‟s Chief Data Officer, explains

why patients can be confident in agreeing to allow their health records to be shared”

http://www.england.nhs.uk/2014/01/15/geraint-lewis/

Issues about

anonymity,

sale to third

parties

Explained in some detail

on website, but leaflets

present simplified, positive

message

Roll out in autumn .... Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

Counter-movements

• “e-patients” (“empowered, engaged, equipped and

enabled”)

• Patient engagement and participatory medicine

• Relationship with information a key element

• Reframing roles of healthcare professional and

patient

• But different perspectives on patient engagement ...


Barello et al., 2014

• “Biomedical research: engagement conceptualized as an effective tool for health self-management.

• “Nursing and caring research: engagement conceptualized as patient‟s self-awareness.

• “Mental health research: engagement conceptualized as clinical alliance

• “Public health and health service management research: engagement conceptualized as citizens‟ empowerment.

• “Multidisciplinary health research: engagement as effective disease self-management.”


Role of information acknowledged

“Consumer health information isn‟t just about leaflets

and printed information. It‟s much broader than that; it

can be hospital signage, appointment letters,

websites, informed consent, personal health records,

patient education programmes, the list goes on. Good

information engages people in their well-being,

improves their experience and enables them and their

families or carers to make choices about their lifestyle,

treatment and the services they use.” (Patient

Information Forum) Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

However!

• Thrusting well-designed information at people is not

a total solution!

• “Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their

reflective participation in the act of liberation is to

treat them as objects which must be saved from a

burning building” (Freire, 1970; 47)


Dr Shahd Salha

Active citizenship- Syria case Sheila Webber, Bill Johnston, Shahd Salha, August 2014

• My experience is linked to training course I ran as part of my PhD research

• The inspiration started with an email I received from one of the librarians who attended my programme . She said …


Active citizenship- Syria case

“what you taught us was great, I was able to search for

the best way to escape after I checked with my

husband all the ways. She told me that she used the

internet on Google earth to find information about the

pathways and I did the same and I teach other people

to do so as well. I am sorry if I said too much but I

wanted to tell you that you are in our heart and what

you teach us is like a matter of live or death”


• Motivation: we lost activists, some of them close friends, because they lacked required skills and attitudes to deal effectively with information

• Group of three people (including myself ) made a first stage plan

• Pilot with small group of five close friends who are activist

• We had to listen to (interview ) their needs first, and then set another second stage plan



• We used Facebook, chat, Skype and chat room to conduct

the meetings, instruct and share information

• We need to regularly update the materials to communicate

upcoming needs

• Training involves also psychological support

• Our trainees have different concerns and sometimes they

are very emotional

• We need to upgrade our skills and attitudes regularly

• Many concerns and risks are involved

• The activities experiences are varied


• Note that in the original presentation examples of IL in action in the Syrian context were given

How our current experience is linked to

my PhD research Information literacy can not be a fixed educational approach

because:

1. People everyday have different information needs;

2. People have different conceptions;

3. People have different experiences;

4. The context where people belong influences their

interaction and understanding of information use and

information need. Hence

Active citizenship in the Syrian context involves acquiring the

skills, attitudes and social intelligence to be able to support

other Syrians with information, information sources,

information advice as needed.


Information literacy in the Syrian

context

would mean giving

activists the candle

to give people the light

to survive in the

land of death


Sheila Webber

Information School

University of Sheffield

[email protected]

Twitter & SL: Sheila Yoshikawa

http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/

Orcid ID 0000-0002-2280-9519

Bill Johnston

Honorary Research Fellow

University of Strathclyde

[email protected]

Dr Shahd Salha

A researcher

Sheffield University

Information School

[email protected]

Photos: Sheila Webber (including in Second Life, trademark Linden Lab), Shahd Salha, Bill Johnston; Picture by Nagham Alkhatib

References • Barello, S. et al. (2014) The Challenges of Conceptualizing Patient

Engagement in Health Care: A Lexicographic Literature Review. Journal of participatory medicine, 6. http://www.jopm.org/evidence/reviews/2014/06/11/the-challenges-of-conceptualizing-patient-engagement-in-health-care-a-lexicographic-literature-review/

• Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin.

• Patient Information Forum: http://www.pifonline.org.uk/

• Salha, S. (2011) The variations and the changes in the school librarians' perspectives of information literacy. PhD Thesis, Information School, University of Sheffield. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1538/2/Salha,_Shahd.pdf

• Telegraph View (2014, 19 February) Data difficulties in the NHS. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10649183/Data-difficulties-in-the-NHS.html


http://www.pifonline.org.uk/



The Active Citizen in a Changing Information Landscape

Education

Transcript of The Active Citizen in a Changing Information Landscape