Information Landscape

Information Landscape

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The Information Landscape

Information Need

Take a look at this landscape. Imagine that you are at this location and that you wanted to go rock climbing. Where would you go? Maybe to one of the mountain cliffs.

What if you had been camping for a week and you were cold and hungry? What part of the landscape would you visit? Maybe you would decide to go inside a warm cabin. Your current needs in this situation would help you decide where to go.

This principle is also true for your information landscape, except that it is the question you have or the information you seek that determines where you look for your answers. We refer to the information that you are seeking as your information need. Your information need helps guide you to the information that will answer your question or solve your problem.

For example, if your car breaks down, you’ll want to know what’s wrong with it and if you can fix it. This need for knowledge is your information need. Understanding what’s wrong with your car (your information need) might help you decide if you need to take it to a mechanic (a local expert on the subject), or if you could watch a self-help YouTube video.

The same goes for researching and writing a paper. The topic or question that your paper focuses on, or your information need, determines what types of sources you search for.

Wide Variety of Sources

Let’s consider the information landscape for the following research question:

How does social media affect the anxiety levels of teenagers?

As you can see below, the information landscape offers many different types of sources that can be used to address this question.

As you wade through this information, it is important to seek reliable information (see source evaluation to learn more). The audience you are writing to will affect what sources you use for evidence. If you are writing to a group of experts, you should focus your search on academic journals. If you are writing to your peers, you may use some reliable news and opinion articles.

Multiple Viewpoints

When you search for answers on the information landscape, you may need to look beyond just the first answer that pops up or the answer that you agree with, because there exist multiple valid viewpoints. To demonstrate, let’s consider the following very serious question:

Download a transcript version of the slides here. 

This is a silly example, but it shows the difficult reality that often exists when we try to determine the truth. Let’s consider the more serious example of whether companies should adopt a remote or in-person work policy.

Download a transcript version of the slides here.

As you move forward in your education and career, you will notice that many issues and topics have conflicting information and solutions associated with them. As you research and write, don’t be afraid to learn about and address these opposing viewpoints. A paper can often benefit from representing multiple perspectives.

Act For Yourself

Think about your day: what types of information do you come across and where is it from? A news article, a general conference talk, a TikTok you watched, a class, homework, textbooks, Youtube, or the documentary film you watched with your roommate?”

How much of this information did you intentionally go looking for? How much of it found you? Some historians call today the Information Age. Businesses, organizations, and individual people are all trying to win over your attention, working to have you believe the information that they share. It’s important to remember that the scriptures counsel each of us, “to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon.” (2 Nephi 2: 26). When it comes to the information landscape, you need to look for ways to control what information you consume and, even more importantly, what information you believe to be true.

Elder Anderson said, “We might remind the sincere inquirer that Internet information does not have a ‘truth’ filter. Some information, no matter how convincing, is simply not true” (Neil L. Andersen, October 2014). Because of the large amount of confusing misinformation and deceiving disinformation available, it’s important to double-check your facts. For example, if you do a little digging, you can find the original source of your information and determine if it’s a credible source (see source evaluation to learn more).

Being a part of the information landscape is a lot like being in the ocean. No matter what you do in the ocean, the current will affect you. Have you ever gone swimming in the ocean, and when you look back at the shore you find you’ve shifted to the left or to the right when you thought you were going in a straight line? Don’t just passively consume information, but instead be a deliberate learner. If you search for reliable information, you won’t just drift in the current, but will successfully ride the waves.🏄🏼

Daily Information Activity

Now it's your turn! Take a moment to consider the information that you come in contact with each day. What are the sources of information that make up your information landscape? As you reflect on these sources, write them down in the text boxes below.