New epistemological challenges for information science

Abstract

This text discusses elements and characteristics of contemporary informational reality, that is, the ways of producing, circulating, organizing, using and appropriating information, in the current context. Initially, there is a problematization of seven terms and concepts used to describe this reality: fake news, false testimonial, hate speech, scientific denialism, disinformation, infodemia and post-truth. Next, we seek to present a framework for such phenomena as an object of study of information science. For that, this scenario is characterized from the three main models of study of information science: the physical, the cognitive and the social. The contribution of each of them to the study of contemporary informational reality is analyzed, identifying aspects such as the bubble effect, the clickbaits, the confirmation bias, the cult of amateurism and the culture of the post-truth. Finally, the discussion of a possible veritistic turn in the field is presented, in order to think about elements not considered until now by the information science in its task and challenge to produce adequate understandings and diagnoses of the current phenomena. In conclusion, it is argued that only accurate and comprehensive diagnoses of such phenomena will allow information science to develop services and systems capable of combating their harmful effects.