Our phase 2 study has been published in the Journal of Documentation. This furthers the work from phase 1 and identifies the conditions that influence the emergence of information literacy (IL) as a safeguarding practice. Again, it is qualitative research, comprised of one-to-one in-depth interviews conducted during the UK’s second and third lockdown (between November 2020 and February 2021).  

The phase 2 research examines the longer-term implications of operating in crisis mode, with the unabating nature of this crisis representing an opportunity to explore how practices unfold and evolve to accommodate fluid times of uncertainty. It is also an opportunity to examine transition in greater detail, including how it bends during ongoing crisis. 

It interrogates the theme of safeguarding during the transitional space between the intensification and maintaining phases, where information strategies appeared to represent “pathologies” (Bawden and Robinson, 2009). Centred on desensitisation and saturation, these strategies stood out due to the shift in emphasis from proactive mediation and documentation of the intensification phase. It led us to consider the reactive elements of IL practice, acting in response rather than in preparation.  

In phase 2 we investigated what happens when people are required to operate in crisis mode over time, including the longer-term impact of crisis information dissemination on the development of understandings about risk, and what comes into view during this operationalisation. Of particular interest were the implications that safeguarding has on IL practice and how the intensifying phase enables or constrains transition. This study allowed us to incorporate experiences from later lockdowns into the sample and people who had experienced COVID-19.  

Findings 

We identify activities that emerged after the initial lockdown, created by accelerated information dissemination and messaging strategies, including avoiding, resisting and boundary marking. These could be seen as indicative of a population disengaged and burnt out; however, we argue that these should be viewed as vital safeguarding activities and a strategy of empowerment that is currently missing from enabling-focused discourse in IL.  

Findings show that participants began to actively create boundaries between themselves and information to reduce “noise”. This sense of feeling overwhelmed led to the creation of limits around the types of information or information sharing platforms use in their practice. The gradual withdrawal from the pandemic information environment is of particular interest because information activities such as avoidance are often viewed negatively within IL discourse, instead of being seen as part of safeguarding during crisis. 

• Saturation and Noise 
  

Saturation is identified as an outcome of the intensifying period, marked by desperate attempts to rebuild information landscapes disrupted through the emergence of rapidly changing and socially mandated instrumental information environments. Saturation, representing a desensitised state, can describe a situation where people become overwhelmed by the abundance of information and the continual exposure to experiences and viewpoints. This study suggests that once participants become saturated with information, their intent becomes to either actively avoid information or to diffuse the information. Saturation information strategies look to reduce the “noise” created by the persistent flow of information.  

Noise is exacerbated by the encompassing nature of information creation, dissemination, and circulation. Noise is then linked to the rapidity of change and the need to stay up to date with changing government rules. As well as the accelerated levels of information dissemination across multiple platforms. Participant’s anxieties show information seeking can lead to saturation and the need to develop strategies to deal with an onslaught of information.   

• Avoidance and Resistance  

The intensity of this time meant that for many participants, actively avoiding information formed the major strategy to address saturation and mitigate the information risk of being overwhelmed. As the pandemic continues, however, avoidance becomes inextricably entangled with the idea of resistance, as participants note how they start to mediate saturation by resisting official governmental discourses. Often becoming more common in later lockdowns and when temporary rules and regulations alter, resistance is consequently predicated upon the growing fragmentation of risk rather than a wholesale rejection of authority or expertise. 

• Agency and Risk

We note that the agentic information focussed work of safeguarding extends to include both information avoidance and resistance as people look to mitigate overload and anxiety associated with operating in crisis mode. Transition literature has tended to equate mediation of change with proactive information activity. However, transition must also be understood as facilitated through reflective processes. Information avoidance and resistance can be understood as facilitating transition by forming how people shape their information environment, creating a protective buffer zone where people can negotiate the emotional impact of change.  

Many risks have been produced during the pandemic with avoidance and resistance strategies having an important impact on how risk is embedded and brought into view. Risk perception has been linked to a lay-expert divide – an “emotional” public fails to see risk laid out by “rational” scientists. This study shows, however, that emotional responses (feeling of fear, anger etc) also play an important role in sensemaking for individuals, rather than creating a distortion of rational judgement.