Our society implicitly asserts that literacy holds power—socially, politically, and culturally. In grade school, more attention is paid to teaching students to read and write than anything else. America seems obsessed with making sure students learn to read. We hear periodic calls (sometimes via public outcry) to improve literacy education. I think here of Newsweek’s “Why Johnny Can’t Write” cover story from 1975 (see the response in English Journal from Suzette Haden Elgin, the 2013 update from NBC Business News, or the brief history of its consequences from the WAC Clearinghouse). I also think of the No Child Left Behind initiative here in the USA, plus the late bell hooks and her work positioning “education as the practice of freedom” based on Paolo Freire’s work on literacy education in South America.
Even UNESCO highlights the importance of literacy, saying it “drives sustainable development, enables greater participation in the labour market, improves child and family health and nutrition, reduces poverty and expands life opportunities.” Put simply, literacy gives people power—so much so that it’s considered a basic human right.
Literacy v. Literacies
Lankshear and Knobel assert the unpopularity of “digital literacies” by citing Amazon search results. They found only a single title using that phrase. But why did they use a retailer to conduct this search and not, say, an academic library? A search for “digital literacies” at Kean’s NTLC generates results that include (as of this writing) 3,000 article/chapter titles and 1,600 book titles. Because the common discourse surrounding digital literacies has undoubtedly shifted between 2008 and 2023, I searched Amazon.com today, as well. I got 229 results, though half the titles on the first results page did not include the plural “literacies” (the whole point of Lankshear and Knobel’s argument). My quick review of the first page of results suggests that 229 is significantly exaggerated, though it’s clear the phrase is more popular now.
To be sure, it’s good that the plural form of digital literacies is getting more attention. But my concern here is methodological. What digital (il)literacy do Lankshear and Knobel demonstrate through the way they make their argument? The use of Amazon search results to speak to the prevalence of a specific phrase, especially in academic literature, strikes me as an inappropriate use of digital technologies—in the midst of an assertion about digital literacies.
Literacy as Social Practices
I opened this post claiming that literacy gives people power. It does so first and foremost by giving people access to society. In our first class session, I said we live in “a literate society,” and that claim received no pushback. If our society relies on literacy, people who are illiterate don’t have the opportunity to integrate into that society. For them, functional access to society is inaccessible.
Digital literacies differ based on platform, just like linguistic practices differ based on discourse community. If that’s true, it follows that we need to develop not only a complex set of digital literacy practices but also the ability to navigate socially established practices using a variety of digital tools and skillsets to match ever-changing needs.
Digital Literacy Education
My classroom experience supports the distinction Lankshear and Knobel make between the singular digital literacy and the plural digital literacies. That distinction resonates well with students. It also tracks with our in-class discussion September 7 about technology as a mindset, rather than a tool. Attempting to think of an example of general digital literacy doesn’t make sense because it’s too broad. Every example of digital literacy we think of demonstrates literacy with a specific digital tool. Ultimately, it’s impossible to “have digital literacy” because that suggests a functional ability to use all forms of digital technology. Limitations on breadth (How many tools counts as enough?) and depth (How technical must your knowledge be?) make it an unreachable goal.
So how do we teach all this? Classes should help students evelop disciplinary understandings or apply disciplinary perspectives to real-world problems. We should also ensure that classes explicitly identify the digital literacies used by practitioners in each course’s respective discipline. That experience gives students the power to navigate online spaces appropriate for the discipline. It would also facilitate students’ membership in a discipline’s discourse communities by learning and rehearsing the relevant social practices. I often say in my classes that I want to teach students to “become little rhetoricians.” Seems like I should be saying I want students to learn how rhetoricians function in digital spaces.
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