Type of Presentation
Workshop
Conference Strand
Media Literacy
Target Audience
Higher Education
Second Target Audience
K-12
Location
Ballroom A
Relevance
This interactive workshop will equip participants with a robust framework for teaching students the knowledge and skills necessary to understand the modern, multifaceted information ecosystems upon which GenAI is built and operates. The 5Cs of news literacy (context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption), as outlined in Tully, Maksl, Ashley, Vraga, and Craft (2021), will be adapted to information literacy more broadly and we will explain how that framework presents an excellent foundation upon which broader information literacy knowledge and skills can be built. As GenAI becomes a “co-intelligence” (Mollick, 2023), understanding the social and personal processes that influence how we and our new digital collaborator find, consume, evaluate, analyze, and respond to information is an essential modern skill relevant to writing, rhetoric, and communication classrooms, among others.
Proposal
Teaching Information Literacy in a GenAI World:
A 5Cs Framework for Fostering Critical Engagement
This interactive workshop will equip participants with a robust framework for teaching students the knowledge and skills necessary to understand the modern, multifaceted information ecosystems upon which GenAI is built and operates. The 5Cs of news literacy (context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption), as outlined in Tully, Maksl, Ashley, Vraga, and Craft (2021), will be adapted to information literacy more broadly and we will explain how that framework presents an excellent foundation upon which broader information literacy knowledge and skills can be built. As GenAI becomes a “co-intelligence” (Mollick, 2023), understanding the social and personal processes that influence how we and our new digital collaborator find, consume, evaluate, analyze, and respond to information is an essential modern skill relevant to writing, rhetoric, and communication classrooms, among others.
The Need for a New Approach
The rapid proliferation of GenAI tools like ChatGPT presents unprecedented challenges and opportunities for education, and these alarms have been sounded by a diverse range of journalists, theorists, and teachers. While popular fact-checking and source evaluation techniques such as lateral reading and the SIFT method have proven useful in certain contexts, they fall short of addressing the larger systemic issues necessary for one to be information literate, concerns that are heightened in the age of GenAI (Cloud, 2018).
Shortcomings of Existing Approaches
Current media and information literacy efforts tend to focus on:
Individual Responsibility: Emphasizing personal responsibility for navigating complex information environments.
Representational Practices: Privileging the analysis of discrete texts and information artifacts, often overlooking the material and performative dimensions of digital media.
Fact-Checking as a Panacea or Cure-all: Overemphasizing the role of fact-checking in addressing mis- and disinformation and problematic information while neglecting the broader contexts that shape knowledge creation.
Benefits of the 5Cs Framework
The 5Cs framework offers a more holistic and critical approach to information literacy in an AI-infused environment by emphasizing:
Knowledge and Skills: Equipping students with a foundational understanding of information ecosystems work, including how GenAI systems interact with those ecosystems.
Social and Systemic Contexts: Examining how information is organized, found, and retrieved, including the social processes by which information and media are constructed and how those contexts influence the information on which GenAI is trained.
Personal Processes and Routines: Examining how information is framed and how those frames are interpreted differently by different people, including how those consumption routines influence how we interact and perceive interacting with the digital collaborator that is GenAI.
Ethical Implications: Prompting critical reflection on the values, biases, and motivations embedded in GenAI algorithms and the potential consequences of their use.
Adapting the 5Cs to GenAI
We propose an interactive workshop that will guide participants in applying the 5Cs to information literacy in the era of GenAI:
Context: Analyzing the social, legal, and historical contexts in which information is constructed, with a special focus on those dimensions of information sources that are used to train GenAI models.
Creation: Understanding information creation as a recursive process, with an emphasis on how people use information to build GenAI models and how people use the outputs of GenAI models to create “original” work.
Content: Critically evaluating both the source material that is used to train GenAI models and the AI-generated content itself.
Circulation: Examining how information is distributed and spread, including the role that organizations and individuals—and by extension increasingly agentic AI models—have in that process, and the role of information spread in shaping public discourse.
Consumption: Empowering students to understand the personal processes by which individuals evaluate, analyze, and respond to information, including how collaborating with GenAI may influence those processes and our perceptions of the value of information.
Workshop Activities
Interactive discussions exploring the application of the 5 Cs to the discussion of GenAI-relevant information literacy in writing, rhetoric, and communication classrooms.
Case study analyses demonstrating the real-world impact of GenAI technologies.
Collaborative brainstorming sessions for developing GenAI information literacy curricula.
Workshop Outcomes
Participants will leave equipped to:
Integrate information-literacy infused principles into GenAI-related teaching practices and curricula.
Help students develop a more robust understanding of the data sets and information ecosystems upon which GenAI is built and operates, and how that knowledge can help individuals maximize the benefits and mitigate the concerns of GenAI.
Foster critical thinking skills related to GenAI-generated content.
Advocate for responsible and ethical GenAI development and use.
By embracing a holistic framework for GenAI literacy, we can empower students to navigate the increasingly complex information landscape upon which GenAI is built and operates and contribute to a more informed and responsible digital future.
References
Cloud, D. L. (2018). Reality bites: Rhetoric and the circulation of truth claims in U.S. political culture. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Press.
Mollick, E. (2024). Co-intelligence: Living and working with AI. New York: Penguin/Portfolio.
Tully, M., Maksl, A., Ashley, S., Vraga, E. K., & Craft, S. (2021). Defining and conceptualizing news literacy. Journalism, 23(8), 1589-1606. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211005888
Short Description
This interactive workshop will equip participants with a robust framework for teaching students the knowledge and skills necessary to understand the modern, multifaceted information ecosystems upon which GenAI is built and operates. The 5Cs of news literacy (context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption), as outlined in Tully, Maksl, Ashley, Vraga, and Craft (2021), will be adapted to information literacy more broadly and we will explain how that framework presents an excellent foundation upon which broader information literacy knowledge and skills can be built.
Keywords
Generative AI, information literacy, co-intelligence, the 5Cs of info lit
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Cook, Paul and Maksl, Adam, "Teaching Information Literacy in a GenAI World: A 5Cs Framework for Fostering Critical Engagement" (2025). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 29.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2025/2025/29
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Information Literacy Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons
Teaching Information Literacy in a GenAI World: A 5Cs Framework for Fostering Critical Engagement
Ballroom A
Teaching Information Literacy in a GenAI World:
A 5Cs Framework for Fostering Critical Engagement
This interactive workshop will equip participants with a robust framework for teaching students the knowledge and skills necessary to understand the modern, multifaceted information ecosystems upon which GenAI is built and operates. The 5Cs of news literacy (context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption), as outlined in Tully, Maksl, Ashley, Vraga, and Craft (2021), will be adapted to information literacy more broadly and we will explain how that framework presents an excellent foundation upon which broader information literacy knowledge and skills can be built. As GenAI becomes a “co-intelligence” (Mollick, 2023), understanding the social and personal processes that influence how we and our new digital collaborator find, consume, evaluate, analyze, and respond to information is an essential modern skill relevant to writing, rhetoric, and communication classrooms, among others.
The Need for a New Approach
The rapid proliferation of GenAI tools like ChatGPT presents unprecedented challenges and opportunities for education, and these alarms have been sounded by a diverse range of journalists, theorists, and teachers. While popular fact-checking and source evaluation techniques such as lateral reading and the SIFT method have proven useful in certain contexts, they fall short of addressing the larger systemic issues necessary for one to be information literate, concerns that are heightened in the age of GenAI (Cloud, 2018).
Shortcomings of Existing Approaches
Current media and information literacy efforts tend to focus on:
Individual Responsibility: Emphasizing personal responsibility for navigating complex information environments.
Representational Practices: Privileging the analysis of discrete texts and information artifacts, often overlooking the material and performative dimensions of digital media.
Fact-Checking as a Panacea or Cure-all: Overemphasizing the role of fact-checking in addressing mis- and disinformation and problematic information while neglecting the broader contexts that shape knowledge creation.
Benefits of the 5Cs Framework
The 5Cs framework offers a more holistic and critical approach to information literacy in an AI-infused environment by emphasizing:
Knowledge and Skills: Equipping students with a foundational understanding of information ecosystems work, including how GenAI systems interact with those ecosystems.
Social and Systemic Contexts: Examining how information is organized, found, and retrieved, including the social processes by which information and media are constructed and how those contexts influence the information on which GenAI is trained.
Personal Processes and Routines: Examining how information is framed and how those frames are interpreted differently by different people, including how those consumption routines influence how we interact and perceive interacting with the digital collaborator that is GenAI.
Ethical Implications: Prompting critical reflection on the values, biases, and motivations embedded in GenAI algorithms and the potential consequences of their use.
Adapting the 5Cs to GenAI
We propose an interactive workshop that will guide participants in applying the 5Cs to information literacy in the era of GenAI:
Context: Analyzing the social, legal, and historical contexts in which information is constructed, with a special focus on those dimensions of information sources that are used to train GenAI models.
Creation: Understanding information creation as a recursive process, with an emphasis on how people use information to build GenAI models and how people use the outputs of GenAI models to create “original” work.
Content: Critically evaluating both the source material that is used to train GenAI models and the AI-generated content itself.
Circulation: Examining how information is distributed and spread, including the role that organizations and individuals—and by extension increasingly agentic AI models—have in that process, and the role of information spread in shaping public discourse.
Consumption: Empowering students to understand the personal processes by which individuals evaluate, analyze, and respond to information, including how collaborating with GenAI may influence those processes and our perceptions of the value of information.
Workshop Activities
Interactive discussions exploring the application of the 5 Cs to the discussion of GenAI-relevant information literacy in writing, rhetoric, and communication classrooms.
Case study analyses demonstrating the real-world impact of GenAI technologies.
Collaborative brainstorming sessions for developing GenAI information literacy curricula.
Workshop Outcomes
Participants will leave equipped to:
Integrate information-literacy infused principles into GenAI-related teaching practices and curricula.
Help students develop a more robust understanding of the data sets and information ecosystems upon which GenAI is built and operates, and how that knowledge can help individuals maximize the benefits and mitigate the concerns of GenAI.
Foster critical thinking skills related to GenAI-generated content.
Advocate for responsible and ethical GenAI development and use.
By embracing a holistic framework for GenAI literacy, we can empower students to navigate the increasingly complex information landscape upon which GenAI is built and operates and contribute to a more informed and responsible digital future.
References
Cloud, D. L. (2018). Reality bites: Rhetoric and the circulation of truth claims in U.S. political culture. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Press.
Mollick, E. (2024). Co-intelligence: Living and working with AI. New York: Penguin/Portfolio.
Tully, M., Maksl, A., Ashley, S., Vraga, E. K., & Craft, S. (2021). Defining and conceptualizing news literacy. Journalism, 23(8), 1589-1606. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211005888
