číslo 1/2013 - Paneurópska vysoká škola

14
Global Media Journal
which early considerations of how ‘old media’ ideas about literacy have been recast by the interactive, network
technologies highlighted above.
Douglas Kellner (2002) argued over a decade ago that we need to develop ‘multiple literacies’ so as to
respond better to the globalizing demands for a more informed, participatory and active citizenry in political,
economic and cultural terms. Literacy, in this conception, ‘comprises gaining competencies in effectively using
socially constructed forms of communication and representation’ (2002, p. 92). More specifically, media
literacy ‘helps people to use media intelligently, to discriminate and evaluate media content, to dissect media
forms critically, and to investigate media effects and uses’ (2002, p. 93). In the new multimedia environment,
Kellner maintained, this type of literacy had never been more important, especially with regard to the development
of skills to create ‘good citizens’ motivated to play an active role in social life. He pointed out that the
same technologies of communication capable of turning ‘spectators into cultural zombies’ may, at the same
time, be used to invigorate democratic debate and participation. The problem, then as now, was how to bring
about the latter on the terrain of the former. That is, how to take seriously the texts of popular culture enjoyed
by young people, recognising and respecting their ideas, values and competencies, without ‘romanticizing’
views that ‘may be superficial, mistaken, uninformed and full of various problematical biases’ (2002, p. 94).
One way forward, Kellner suggested, is to adapt new computer technologies to education so as to facilitate
the development of new literacies.
In seeking to expand upon familiar conceptions of literacy, Kellner drew attention to emergent forms of
what he terms ‘computer literacy’. Important here, he argued, is the need to push this concept beyond its usual
meaning, namely as the technical ability to use computer programs and hardware. A broader definition, it followed,
would attend to information and multimedia literacy as well. That is to say, Kellner’s extended conception
of computer literacy would include learning how to use computers, locate information via search engines,
operate email and list servers, and construct websites. Computer and information literacies, he wrote, involve
‘learning where information is found, how to access it, and how to organize, interpret and evaluate it’ (2002,
p. 95). At the same time, they also entail ‘learning how to read hypertexts, to traverse the ever-changing fields
of cyberculture, and to participate in a digital and interactive multimedia culture that encompasses work,
education, politics, culture and everyday life’ (2002, p. 95; see also Allan, 2002; Hassan, 1999; Lievrouw and
Livingstone, 2002; Sefton-Green, 1998; Warnick, 2002). Clearly at stake here, then, is the teaching of more
than just technical forms of knowledge and skills. By stretching the notion of literacy to include new strategies
of reading, writing and researching and communicating abilities appropriate to a larger ‘computer culture’,
Kellner was helping to discern the conceptual space necessary to engage with an array of different, yet interrelated,
types of information processing that possessed the potential to open up opportunities for alternative
types of media practice to emerge.
Reading this and related research with the benefit of hindsight, one recognises the extent to which early
discourses of ‘computer literacy’ inform certain formulations of media literacy today, namely those striving
to interweave relevant aspects of ‘news literacy’, ‘information literacy’, ‘visual literacy’ and ‘digital literacy’ to
advantage. The scholarship devoted to these and related conceptions of literacy is voluminous, and need not
be rehearsed here. Rather, it is sufficient to note for our purposes the growing awareness amongst researchers
and practitioners of the reasons why ‘literacy’ must necessarily stretch to encompass creative forms of
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