Combatting Disinformation:
There are quite a few tools online that can help you sort through online information to determine whether or not something is true, as well as how to identify propaganda or campaigns containing false information. These include:
-Information Operation Archive
Research Skills for Non-Researchers
Step 1: Formulate your research question
Your research question may stem from an article you saw online, or a comment on someone’s Instagram post. Perhaps you’d like to research something you’re personally interested in, like an artist or a building. To offer an example from current events, let’s say you want to research the history of activism against police brutality in your community, where would you start?
First, write down your research query. In this case, let’s start with a question we can break down using keywords: “What is the history of protest and activism against police brutality in Los Angeles?” We can pull keywords from this question: “history” “protest” “activism” and “police brutality” and “Los Angeles” and use these keywords to search available resources.
Step 2: Finding Resources
Choosing your resource depends on your research question. If you are researching a current event, you may want to start with newspaper archives. If you are researching a person, you may want to start with archival collections. There is no one right way. When assisting a researcher, I like to offer them as many resources as I am able to find, and narrow it down from there.
Let’s use our example research question: “What is the history of protest and activism against police brutality in Los Angeles?” Now that we have chosen a location, what types of primary sources should we look for? Newspapers are a great start, as are things like the records of local politicians and activists. Collections containing independent press can be super useful, as they represent a local perspective that isn’t always shown in mainstream media. Most universities have at least some of their archives digitized and available to the public online.
Let’s start with links to resources that are local to Los Angeles:
-The Los Angeles Times archive. Note: Most newspaper archives are only accessible through a paywall.
-USC Special Collections Guide to Digitized Primary Sources
-Cal State L.A. Special Collections
-The L.A Public Library Special Collections
-The Los Angeles City Historical Society
Other resources, not necessarily local to L.A.:
-The Online Archive of California
-The Internet Archive/Wayback Machine
Each of these collections are searchable using keywords, as well as dates. Some of the primary sources you can find by searching these collections include ephemera like posters and flyers; newspaper, magazine, and independent press articles; photographs; political records; film and video files; and interviews and oral histories.
Databases are another incredibly useful tool in a researcher’s skillset. The majority of databases are hidden behind a paywall, accessible to University faculty and students but not the general public. You can ask an academic librarian like myself to perform database research for you, or you can search one of the free databases: