Information Cycle Timeline

After an event occurs, different types of information from different perspectives are released. The Information Cycle or Information Timeline is helpful in making sense of that information.

Information Cycle Example

To make this clearer, let's look at a specific example - the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin.

• The first reports of Trayvon Martin's killing were posted on social media on the day it happened.
• In the days and weeks following, information about Martin's death, George Zimmerman's eventual charge of murder, and subsequent protests and rallies was primarily available through up-to-the-minute news media; newspapers, television, the Internet, and radio.
• In the weeks following, discussion of Travon Martin's death moved into popular magazines.
• In the months following, scholars, experts, and researchers began publishing articles about Trayvon Martin's death in academic journals.
• In the years following, experts, researchers, and scholars published books on the topic. Years after the event, established knowledge of Trayvon Martin's death is now published in reference books like encyclopedias and text books.

This shows why it's important to know where the information we're using comes from. While immediate reports on social media and news sources give us first-hand reports of what was happening at the time, scholarly journals, books, and encyclopedias give us more in-depth, researched, and thoughtful discussions. First-hand reports can tell us what witnesses saw, but in-depth reporting of the event and its repercussions that has been done over several years gives us a more objective view of Martin's murder. We should also think about the authority and credibility of the various types of information. Is the person reporting the information an expert? If we're not sure, we can always google them to see what we can find out.

 

Choosing the Right Source for Our Information Need

What information we need and what we're going to do with it should influence the information source we use. For example, if we're interested in knowing what people and reporters were saying about Martin's murder immediately after the event, then we should look at social media posts and reports from news sources (TV/radio, online, and newspapers). But if we're doing research on the Black Lives Matter movement and we want to see how Martin's murder fits in with other murders that have occurred in the past ten years, then books, encyclopedias, and scholarly journals are more appropriate. If we're not sure how to make this determination, we can think about where the particular type of publication is available to us.

• Social media and news sources are available on our mobile devices, and we can get news there too, as well as on TV/radio, the web, or in print. They're meant for informational or entertainment purposes.
• Newspapers and popular magazines can be purchased in grocery stores, newsstands, bookstores, and places like the airport. They're also meant for informational or entertainment purposes.
• Books can be purchased in some of these places, but books that are more academic in nature are more easily found in libraries. They could be for informational, educational, or entertainment purposes, depending on the book's subject.
• Encyclopedias and scholarly journals are most commonly found in libraries, although some scholars and experts have subscriptions to scholarly journals. (We won't find them in the grocery store or airport!) They're meant for informational and educational purposes.