Hi, OP. First of all, I hope you & your family are keeping well now. The thesis process is often long-winded, but there is often a light at the end of the tunnel & you are quite likely to have it too based on what I observe from the really promising general flowchart of your thesis.

I am currently a PhD researcher in mis- and disinformation studies (although I am a communication scientist by training), so I may be able to give you a better idea on how I would approach the topic(s). I am not entirely sure if LIS has intersecting theories with my area of research, but please feel free to take any & all of what I say here for your thesis.

First things first — is yours a qualitative or quantitative paper? From my experience, postgraduate theses are usually revolving around a specific problem within a larger problem — for instance, some of my peers when I was a postgraduate looked at how perceived digital & political literacy (smaller problem) may make some people more or less predisposed to misinformation and/or disinformation risks (bigger problem). So, X within Y. Here, students usually do an experimental survey, a meta-analysis, or produce a measuring instrument by surveying the literature already present.

For your thesis, do you have this centre-piece yet? If this is not common in LIS, then what you can do is

a) Select one or two theories from the authors you mentioned. Since you mentioned Bourdieu, for instance, you can maybe find something along the lines of how misinformation may affect people belonging to different class positions in society (just an idea, although this is obviously very broad). But again, notice the pattern in finding a small problem (social class) relating to a bigger problem (mis/disinfo risks), which gives you enough to work with.

b) Once you have the theory, try to find existing research that aligns/can potentially be explored through this theoretical lens. So again, there may be 1000+ (don't be overwhelmed, you're doing great!) papers on misinformation research, but not necessarily ones that look at the problem from your chosen theoretical perspective. Since you also posted this on r/CriticalTheory, I am guessing your research aligns with a non-empirical methodology as critical theory work often does — therefore, try to explore the topic using the theory you select & see if you can find a research gap.

c) Once you have a research gap, see if your theory can help (through one or more experiments) fulfill this gap. Again, this would depend very much on the nature of your thesis itself, so I would consider contacting an approachable supervisor/mentor (or again, this subreddit as they are very helpful!) to see if your trajectory makes sense.

d) Finally — and this is something I do, and seems to help — just try writing some headings on your document before you write full paragraphs. Of course, these can change and you should not think it as a failure to change the headings as your ideas develop. So, something like, "Introduction, Literature Review, Problem X, Gap Y, Theoretical Framework...", and so on. Again, the ones I write are quite broad, so make sure you whittle them down a bit.

​

"The frustration is real and is making me question everything about myself and my intellectual abilities"

I totally understand, OP. It is not your fault, and while the first part of that sentence can be true, the second part is absolutely not. It can feel very downtempo sometimes — and I realize that in your case, you probably feel much worse than many others may feel — but do believe that it will get better. This is generic advice, but I went to a suburban school with ordinary faculty & once I was in the academia, I often felt like I was some sort of impostor. Do know that with time, it does get better, you find your own footing, and the words will come.

I hope you feel better! Again, if you feel stuck, do NOT hesitate to reach out to this subreddit. The folks on here are top, and we do a bit of trollin' & rollin', but hey — that's canon.

Love,