The processes of knowledge production and authentication via cyberspace are interesting, complex, and understudied. “The processes of knowledge production and authentication”refers to the manners and mores undergirding the ways actors, particularly those involved in social media, create knowledge via their participation in social media (e.g. blog posting, forums, twittering, etc) and how that knowledges assumes and acquires validity or “authentication.” Simply put, I am intrigued by how someone’s blog post or website can go from confessional to politically and socially relevant: how do producers and consumers of social media determine what is valid, authentic work worth sharing or citing from work that is entertaining but without substance. The following are two examples worth considering in light of these questions:

1. Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search


In this study conducted by the folks at Microsoft, the relationship between hyperchondria and information about health acquired from online sources is examined.  Cyberchondria is the process by which a searcher locates information about health issues online and evaluates their health in light of the information acquired, usually concluding that their health is in much worse condition than it actually is. The researchers at Microsoft observed that a majority of their subjects did not validate or ‘authenticate’ the information they read. They did not examine the sources cited, the dates/years the website was last updated, or what institutions the ‘medical experts’ were affiliated with. Instead, the subjects bought what they read and subsequently freaked out. A fascinating and worrisome study.

2. The Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy

This think-tank is a joke. If you haven’t heard this story, read this. The real genius of this site and of “Martin Eisenstadt,” the senior research fellow responsible for ‘leaking’ the ‘story’ that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was not a country, is their ability to call into question the nature of expertise and truth in cyberspace. A think-tank without substance, a total farce, and yet the Harding Institute and its star research fellow manage to get cited in the LA Times and by, unsurprisingly, John McCain’s cronies. This case should have everyone asking: who is an expert and what exactly constitutes expertise? How is expertise performed? And yes, it is indeed performed and the Harding Institute can teach us a few things. I know I am taking notes. Glasses. Check. Intellectual pretension coupled with an ever growing ego. Working on it (ha!).

There are a number of cultural theorists who write about cyberspace and argue that it is a space that is unique and should be evaluated on its own terms, outside of conventional systems of evaluation. While I agree with this sentiment on a theoretical level, such an endeavor is not pragmatic. The Internet, particularly social media, is rapidly developing and enabling actors to produce and distribute information/knowledge at exponential rates. Our ability to critically assess the information we encounter through social media is constantly behind the development of tools for information production and dissemination. It would appear that some of us in our game of catch-up, revert to our traditional systems of evaluation of knowledge (i.e. citational, textual, and institutional references) to evaluate online sources, systems that are hardly unique or specific to the Internet. Then again, those willing to take the Internet on the Internet’s terms risk intellectual or social debasement when their online sources are revealed to be fraudulent or without substance. I’d take ‘old school’ intellectual cynicism over overly idealistic, cyberphilic naiveté any day.

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