”Jag gillar ju algoritmen, på gott och ont” : En fenomenografisk analys av tonåringars informationslandskap på sociala medier

Sammanfattning: This study maps and describes adolescents´ conceptions of information literacy on social media, with the aim of shedding light on their everyday information life and shared information landscape. 7 focus groups with a total of 33 teenagers were conducted and the outcome was analyzed using a phenomenographic approach and the concept of information literacy landscapes.  Four categories of description were identified: Participation, Critical thinking, Understanding and Use. The Participation category sees information literacy as engaging socially within the information landscape, the Critical thinking category puts emphasis on evaluating information and the Understanding category represents conceptions that show an understanding of the practice as well as the underlying infrastructures of social media. The last category, Use, sees information literacy as the use of social media mostly for entertainment purposes. These four categories represent different ways of looking at information literacy within the social media context and are hierarchically related, with Understanding being the most complex level. The teenagers engage in a range of information literacy practices, which in part differ from the practices taught in information literacy education.  This study indicates a gap between the adolescents’ information literacy practice on social media on the one hand and the way they perceive information literacy and source evaluation on the other hand. By understanding how the practice is situated within the social media context, the education in information literacy can become more relevant to the everyday lives of teenagers. This is a two-year master´s thesis in Library and Information science.