Expanding Media Literacy Through Critical Digital Aesthetics

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In this symposium, we expand approaches to digital media literacy by proposing the concept of “critical digital aesthetics.” Although the field of digital media literacy has largely focused on the identification of misinformation, we synthesize scholarship from critical media literacy with aesthetic theory to argue that youth are often interacting with digital texts in ways that move beyond assessing the veracity of these texts. We build this new heuristic by contrasting data drawn from three ethnographic studies we conducted with adolescent youth. Through this comparison we demonstrate that youth are reading and writing in digital spaces with an attention to both what texts say and how this message is artistically constructed with affect and impact in mind.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Beth Krone, Kennesaw State University

Papers

• Aesthetic Literacies: Stances, Scales, and Practices in Youth Literary Interpretation of Digital Texts - Scott Storm, University at Albany - SUNY

• Critical Aesthetics of Teens’ Digital Activist Literacies in an Online Multi-Case Study - Dominique Skye McDaniel, Kennesaw State University

• Aesthetic and Efferent Readings of Digital News Media in an 11th-Grade English Classroom - Beth Krone, Kennesaw State University

Discussant

• T. Philip Nichols, Baylor University