Kildekritikken

Kildekritikken, commonly translated as source criticism, is the systematic evaluation of sources to judge their reliability, accuracy, and relevance for a given claim or research question. It is used across disciplines to distinguish credible information from errors, biases, or manipulation, and to understand how knowledge is produced and transmitted.

Practitioners consider factors such as authorship, provenance, date, and purpose. Key questions include: who created the source, for whom, and with what authority; when and where was it produced; what are the potential biases or interests behind it; what evidence does it rely on; and how does it fit with other sources? Analysts classify sources as primary, secondary, or tertiary and assess their reliability, completeness, and context. Corroboration with independent sources and an awareness of translation or transcription issues are common practices.

Applications: in history and humanities, kildekritikken guides interpretation of events; in journalism, it underpins verification and fact-checking; in science, it relates to evaluating data, methods, and reproducibility. In the digital age, it also involves assessing online documents, metadata, authenticity, and the spread of misinformation, as well as attention to algorithmic amplification and source masking.

Limitations and challenges include the inevitability of bias, gaps in available sources, language barriers, and the fact that no source is entirely neutral. Critics caution against overreliance on any single source and emphasize transparency about the criteria and context of evaluation. Teaching kildekritikk promotes media literacy and critical thinking.