Neag School study about internet literacy featuring the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is profiled; study author Donald Leu is mentioned.

A 2013 Pew report found that 62 percent of people in the U.S. now get their information from social media, and 47 percent of Facebook users go there for news. Today, every person is both a reporter and a consumer of online information. As a result, each of us is potentially the problem — as well as the solution — to the altered landscape of fake news and false information in an online world.

“What has made ‘fake news’ so visible this year is that it appears to have played a role in an important national election,” said Donald J. Leu, director of The New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut.

Fake news and questions about its role in the outcome of the 2016 election have thrust concerns about internet literacy to the forefront. It’s an issue Neag School of Education professor Donald Leu has been studying for years; and the findings of a 10-year-old study he led demonstrating the inadequacies of classroom instruction in “new literacies” has been getting renewed attention.