The Role of Scholarly Communication in Combating Disinformation and Misinformation

Abstract

Reflecting on a course in scholarly communication, this short article aims to show not only that scholarly communication is essential for a career in academic libraries, but also that the understanding of how researchers work, publish, and disseminate research findings plays an important role in combating disinformation and misinformation. The relationship between scholarly communication and information is discussed from three perspectives: research evaluation is affecting the quantity and quality of information; the open science movement can make information less diverse and more noisy; and researchers are not necessarily neutral or indifferent.