Professors' Perspectives on Truth-Seeking and New Literacy

New media and new literacy are essential in our contemporary paradigms of education and communication research. Though truth-seeking is one of the primary objectives inherent in higher education, the process for students may be less clear than it may be for trained academics or professors. The current study sought to explore how professors recommend that students seek truth in the information age. Relying on an assignment from a communication course, this study examined responses from student-led interviews with professors from across the U.S. and categorized trends in their recommendations for students. Overall twelve themes taken from advice on student truth-seeking emerged from the professors' responses. We couch these findings in the current internet era that is faced with overwhelming amounts of information, channels, problems of misinformation, and the spreading of false stories via social media. Conclusions center around the need for new literacy and new media awareness.