Assembling "Digital Literacy": Tracing Its Histories and Possible Futures

• In Event: 18.070 - Interrogating the Multiple Meanings of Digital Literacies

Abstract

What is “digital literacy”? Once a common and contested discussion topic (e.g. Buckingham, 2006), the term’s recent proliferation in research, practice, and public discourse has slowly stabilized it into a taken-for-granted concept - one vaguely connected to proficiency with digital technologies. At a time when this usage is increasingly invoked in research and policy (cf. Lankshear & Knobel, 2008), this paper works to trace the multiple and varied lineages of “digital literacy” that converge in our present conceptions of the term. In doing so, we do not idealize one lineage as the term’s correct definition; rather, we aim to illustrate that there are multiple “digital literacies,” each with its own configuration of properties and theoretical commitments that do particular work for those who use it. We argue that reducing “digital literacy” to any singular definition risks not only foreclosing important lines of inquiry for researchers and teachers, but also precludes opportunities to reconfigure the term in possible futures of teaching and learning.
In tracing the history of the term, we draw on the resources of assemblage theory (DeLanda, 2006), which recognizes both terminology and social practices as historical processes formed from a constellation of linguistic and material actors (DeLanda, 2011). On one hand, this positions “digital literacy” as an assemblage - not only carrying particular assumptions about its component parts (What is “digital”? “Literacy”?), but also framed in relation to similar, historically-situated terms (How is “digital literacy” related to “media literacy”?). On the other hand, it lets us see how these varied configurations of “digital literacy” are deployed at different scales of activity - from navigating algorithms (Author 4), to interpreting media messages (Author 2), to producing digital artifacts (Author 3). An assemblage approach not only highlights how these uses emerge from bottom-up practices, but also how they can form labels of classification that define and bound future activities (DeLanda, 2010). This paper, then, is a means to keep these and other possible configurations of “digital literacy” open-ended.
We illustrate the importance of such a stance through a case study from a five-year ethnographic research project examining the Media Production Makerspace in an urban public high school centered on“making” (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014). To examine how different assemblages of “digital literacy” work to foreground distinct points of emphasis and obscure others, we trace one student’s digital multimedia practices across a range of scales - technical skills, classroom interactions, distribution to publics. Our findings from this mapping reveal the importance of not only recognizing a plurality of “digital literacies” but also acknowledging that the concept is more than the sum of these dimensions - which leaves open possibilities for other, not-yet-imagined uses. Such findings hold significance for educators in elucidating how our definitions and uses of “digital literacy” have implications for directing the ways policy and practice unfold in daily life. In the rush to implement “digital literacy” into school curricula (Hicks & Turner, 2013), this framing allows for deeper inquiry into the underlying commitments that come with configuring and implementing the term in particular ways.

Authors

• Amy Stornaiuolo, University of Pennsylvania

• T. Philip Nichols, University of Pennsylvania