Toward the Resistant Reading of Information: Google, Resistant Spectatorship, and Critical Information Literacy

The theory of resistant spectatorship posits that individuals interacting with media and information may have the agency or power to oppose, reject, or reassemble the message they encounter instead of passively accepting it. This study puts resistant spectatorship in conversation with information literacy and critiques one example of a dominant information discovery system, Google Search, from a “resistant” position. Additionally, this study argues that, within academic libraries, the practice of critical information literacy, a pedagogical approach aligned with the concept of resistant spectatorship, is an ideal mode for encouraging students to become resistant readers of information in its increasingly corporate-mediated forms.