Freedom under responsibility or true and unaffected knowledge : Reliability of sources and how it is valued by two user groups.

This essay is investigating what type of sources we trust, depending on how the information in these sources is created and provided. To exemplify, the sources Wikipedia and Nationalencyklopedin (the Swedish National Encyclopedia) were used, each one representing different approaches. The first is a representation of the collective intelligence, where anyone can contribute with their knowledge to the public – freedom under responsibility. The latter represents peer-reviewed knowledge, desirable enough to have people paying for it– true and unaffected.Based on theories of source criticism, collective intelligence, expertise and the different generations of digital natives and digital immigrants, two focus groups were conducted and analysed. A group of upper secondary school students and a group of retirees were presented with encoded texts from both encyclopedias, which they analysed critically from their opinion on reliability and objectivity. Their reasoning shows a well demonstrated awareness of the need of a critical reasoning and information literacy when dealing with different sources. But the question remained, particularly in regards to the students, if they do after all practice these skills in their information retrieval.Program: Bibliotekari