(Dis)Information, Dysfunctions, and Democracy during the Global Pandemic: Is the Vision of Social Justice a Mirage (for Libraries) in the Neoliberal Age?

This article weaves three unhealthy realities of the contemporary age that have hijacked democracy in support of (dis)information’s absolute power, scientific research be damned! Democracy’s dysfunctions are operationalized within a neoliberal age, owing to social media’s perpetual cycle of distractions, scorn and political spinelessness across party lines, and the reluctance or inability of news sources to expose the hard truths and take preventive actions in the (dis)information diffusion processes surrounding the COVID-19 disease. The think-aloud narrative gives readers an opportunity to analyze the spread of (dis)information that has made it so potent during the pandemic. The narrative calls on libraries (and others) to implement critical literacies and social justice intersections that might allow for a path moving forward to overcome these dysfunctional conditions that we are experiencing in the twenty-first century.