Media Literacy and the Challenge of New Information and Communication Technologies

Abstract

Renewed debates over media literacyThe concept of media literacy, like that of literacy itself, has long proved contentious (Luke, 1989). The hugely significant skills of reading and writing have been augmented by the also-significant skill of 'reading' audiovisual material from the midtwentieth century onwards. Today, as we witness a further major shift in information and communication technology (ICT), a new form of literacy is emerging, uneasily termed computer literacy or internet literacy. This new form of literacy, if its is indeed 'new', and if it is appropriately labeled 'literacy', lies at the heart of a series of lively debates intersecting the academy, the policy community, and the public.A casual search of bookshops makes plain the explosion of academic interest in questions of literacy, with titles exploring literacy in the electronic era (Snyder, 1998), the information age (Kubey, 1997), the digital era (Warnick, 2002), the digital world (Tyner, 1998) or even cyberliteracy (Gurak, 2001). These volumes draw together a multidisciplinary mix of specialists in literacy, culture, media education, human-computerinteraction, and social studies of technology (Kellner, 2002;Kubey, 1997;Poster, 2001;Tyner, 1998). Meanwhile, policy makers are determining regulatory frameworks required to produce an ICT-literate population, at times turning to the academy for guidance.This mix of disciplines and stakeholder interests is perhaps generating more heat than light at present. This is exacerbated by the fact that so far, research has been mainly 2 analytic, for few have explored new literacies empirically. Indeed, only recently has the majority of the public even had the chance to come to terms with the new skills required of them not just in their leisure, as with television, but crucially also at work, in education and in their community (Livingstone, 2002). This brief paper takes the opportunity to draw out a series of key intellectual challenges posed by the introduction of new information and communication technologies for our thinking about media literacy. Is 'literacy' a useful term?History tells us that even the narrow and common-sense meaning of the term -'being able to read and write' -masks a complex history of contestation over the power and authority to access, interpret and produce printed texts (Luke, 1989) Some might argue that we should leave the somewhat opaque, contested term 'literacy' to its origins in high culture (Williams, 1976), rejecting its association with the world of authoritative printed books and its tendency to stigmatize those who lack it. Doubtless the spawning of new literacies -computer literacy, cyber-literacy, internet literacy, network literacy, digital literacy, information literacy -is infelicitous. And how do these relate to the existing literacy terms -print literacy, audiovisual literacy, critical literacy, visual literacy, oral literacy, cultural literacy or social literacy ((Freire and Macedo, 1987;Hirsch, 1987;Street, 1995)? When the dominant media shifted from printba...

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