Epistemic rights in tension and accord: Expanding the analysis of source evaluation criteria

In this article, we tie together two strands of timely education research. Given the prevalence of unreliable information and disinformation flooding the Internet, one strand of research has explored how to teach students to evaluate the credibility of sources of information, such as websites and social media posts. At the same time, another strand of research has taken up concerns about elevating marginalized voices that are often ignored in knowledge production. We argue that both of these issues can be addressed jointly through a consideration of epistemic rights—specifically, the right to know and the right to contribute to knowledge. We apply these rights to the analysis of source evaluation and its instruction. Our analysis of these epistemic rights leads to an expanded, more nuanced conceptualization of three commonly used source credibility evaluation criteria: expertise, benevolence, and social validation. We also analyze how the right to know and the right to contribute knowledge are sometimes in accord and sometimes in tension, which can be resolved only through situated judgments of source credibility. Then, we present an elaboration of the Apt-AIR framework of epistemic thinking to explain how epistemic rights could be taken into account in apt source evaluation.