In order to challenge information privilege, we must first examine our own privileges within these systems. Privilege is multi-layered and may change over time. For example, the privileges that you experience now as a student, especially with regards to access, may not apply to you once graduate. As you work on your degree and start engaging with and producing scholarly content, try to critically examine your position and identify ways in which you can help make information sharing more equitable.
What barriers exist to accessing information? Some examples include access (or lack thereof) to technology--either personally or through institutional affiliation, as well as barriers due to geographical location or personal socioeconomic status.
How might your affiliation with an US- or Canadian-based academic institution allow you to bypass some of these barriers?
Have you ever been in a position where you did not have readily available internet or library access?
Does where you live impact your ability to access certain content?
What roles do conventional search methods play in information privilege? Who has access to these processes? Who may be excluded and why? You may, for instance, wish to consider the difference between doing a Google Search vs. an advanced search in a database like Sage Premier or ProQuest.
What sorts of information has academia privileged in the past?
What types of voices may you be missing by only relying on traditional scholarship?
To what extent do the materials in library databases produce dominant research methods and occlude underrepresented, i.e. non-white, knowledge systems? For example, consider the same databases and whether or not they primarily index articles that promote conventional disciplinary methods or whether you can find articles in them that propose methods with a strong diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or antiracist approach.
What other types of expertise exist?
Where can you find them?
How might we be complicit in the dissemination and reuse of exclusive information and hegemonic methodologies? There's much to consider here that can center upon the courses you take or have currently taken and the research methods promoted in those classes.
What kinds of alternatives to conventional scholarly publishing exist?
Are you and/or your instructors talking about them?
Finally, how does information privilege help us better understand other types of privileges as well as the concept of intersectionality? We love this question. It pushes us to think critically about how the scholarly communication process impacts our lives and the lives of others, both within academia and beyond.