An important area of economics is the topic of making decisions based on imperfect information, or decision-making under uncertainty. While decisions under risk are defined quite narrowly in economics as decisions where we know each outcome’s probability, decisions under uncertainty are decisions where we do not know all the outcomes or their probability. When trying to make a decision under uncertainty, typically the first step is to search for more information, as you want to reduce a decision under uncertainty to a decision under risk. Thus information literacy is a critical component of decision making. At the university where I teach, information literacy is a required component of every writing intensive course required of all majors.
In this “Post-Truth Era,” as some have called it, finding factual information has become extremely complicated. Nowhere is this more evident than in the media, where misinformation and conspiracy theories try to bias our opinions about everything from vaccinations to mask-wearing, to the last presidential election. This is why information literacy is such a crucial part of decision-making. The following graph from Ad Fontes Media gives an excellent analysis of the bias of media in America.
Figure 3.1. Bias of News Outlets by Ad Fontes Media, Inc. is used with permission of the author.
This chart is a continually updated version on the Ad Fontes Media website.
For financial literacy, you can read serious mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Economist via library access or student subscriptions.