The past century has witnessed an ever-accelerating revolution in the ways by which we communicate with each other, and that revolution is far from complete. Understanding how our literacy skills and behaviours are evolving—how we make use of old technologies and adapt to new ones—and how critical development may be fostered is arguably one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century. It is vital to education, to civic participation, to political and commercial judgement, and to many other areas of contemporary life.
One of the principal barriers to gaining a comprehensive grasp of how people understand and use contemporary media lies in differential adoption of media technologies. This differential adoption, whether generational, financial, or geographic, has major implications for the development of literacies related to particular media. Official educational practices often lag far behind behaviours ‘on the ground’, and the ways in which learners develop new strategies for relating to media are as likely to be tacitly acquired through play as explicitly articulated in formal learning processes. It is essential, therefore, to pay careful attention to people’s implicit assumptions about media use as well as to look at what is more explicitly understood.
To help make sense of these complexities and the global explosion of interest and research in media and digital education, this four-volume collection, a new title in the Routledge Major Work series, Major Themes in Education, brings together the best research and theory on issues relating to literacies in both old- and new-media technologies.
The volumes in the collection gather both canonical and the finest cutting-edge scholarship on media literacies, exploring media technologies from a variety of perspectives. As well as focusing on the theoretical questions and the practical educational issues arising out of the constantly changing nature of the technological revolution, Media Literacies also examines the behaviours of media users themselves, from their first tacit understandings of how to make sense of a new kind of text to their later articulated and critical responses. This attention to users is reflected in the organization of the volumes. The editor, a leading scholar in the field, has organized the collection under the ‘verbs’ of media behaviour: viewing, listening, game-playing, using the Internet, interacting with other people, information-seeking, and reading and writing in new times. The set also comprises a general introductory section and a final section exploring some of the engines that have driven media change (such as aesthetic developments, corporate priorities, political pressures, and a few select ‘global accelerators’ of change: sports, religion, and the movement of people across national boundaries).
Media Literacies is an essential collection and is destined to be valued as a vital research resource by all scholars and students with an interest in the subject.
VOLUME I
Part 1. Media Literacies: General
Theoretical and Historical Framing
1. Donna E. Alvermann and Margaret C. Hagood, ‘Critical Media Literacy: Research, Theory, and Practice in "New Times"’, Journal of Educational Research, 93, 3, 2000, pp. 193–205.
2. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear, ‘"New" Literacies: Research and Social Practice’, in Beth Maloch, James V. Hoffman, Diane L. Schallert, Colleen M. Fairbanks, and Jo Worthy (eds.), 54th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (2005), pp. 22–50.
3. Henry Jenkins, ‘Conclusion: Democratizing Television? The Politics of Participation’, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006), pp. 240–60.
4. Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, ‘Issues for the Multimodal Agenda’, Multimodal Discourses: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication (London: Arnold, 2001), pp. 111–33.
5. Lev Manovich, ‘What is New Media?’, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp. 27–48.
6. James Paul Gee, ‘Shape-Shifting Portfolio People’, Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 91–115.
7. David Morley, ‘What’s "Home" Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6, 4, 2003, pp. 435–58.
8. Sonia Livingstone, ‘Media Literacy and the Challenge of New Information and Communication Technologies’, The Communication Review, 7, 2004, pp. 3–14.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
9. Muriel Robinson and Bernardo Turnbull, ‘Veronica: An Asset Model of Becoming Literate’, in Jackie Marsh (ed.), Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2005), pp. 51–72.
Explicit/Articulated Understanding
10. Anne Haas Dyson, ‘Coach Bombay’s Kids Learn to Write: Children’s Appropriation of Media Material for School Literacy’, Research in the Teaching of English, 33, 4, 1999, pp. 367–401.
Critical Perceptions
11. Henry A. Giroux, ‘Doing Cultural Studies: Youth and the Challenge of Pedagogy’, Harvard Educational Review 64, 3, 1994, pp. 278–309.
Educational Issues
12. New London Group, ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures’, Harvard Educational Review 66,1, 1996, pp. 60–91.
13. David Buckingham, ‘Media Education and the End of the Critical Consumer’, Harvard Educational Review, 73, 3, 2003, pp. 309–27.
Part 2. Media Literacies: Listening
Theoretical and Historical Framing
14. Michael Chanan, ‘Record Culture’, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 1995), pp. 1–22.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
15. Tia DeNora, ‘Music as a Technology of Self’, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 46–74.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
16. Andrew Whelan, ‘Do U Produce? Subcultural Capital and Amateur Musicianship in Peer-to-Peer Networks’, in Michael P. Ayers (ed.), Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 57–81.
Critical Understanding
17. David Spitz and Starling D. Hunter, ‘Contested Codes: The Social Construction of Napster’, The Information Society, 21, 2005, pp. 169–80.
Educational Issues
18. Anne Haas Dyson, ‘The Stolen Lipstick of Overheard Song: Composing Voices in Child Song, Verse, and Written Text’, in Martin Nystrand and John Duffy (eds.), Towards a Rhetoric of Everyday Life (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), pp. 145–86.
VOLUME II
Part 3. Media Literacies: Viewing
Theoretical and Historical Framing
19. Stuart Hall, ‘Encoding/decoding’, Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–79, (London: Hutchinson, 1980), pp. 128–38.
20. Raymond Williams, ‘Programming: Distribution and Flow’, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London: Fontana/Collins, 1974), pp. 78–96.
21. Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, ‘The Meaning of Composition’, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 181–218.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
22. Jackie Marsh, ‘Moving Stories: Digital Editing in the Nursery’, in Janet Evans (ed.), Literacy Moves On: Popular Culture, New Technologies, and Critical Literacy in the Elementary Classroom (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005), pp. 30–49.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
23. Bob Hodge and David Tripp, ‘"God Didn’t Make Yogi Bear": The Modality of Children’s Television’, Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986), pp. 100–31.
Critical Understanding
24. Andrew Burn and David Parker, ‘Making your Mark: Digital Inscription, Animation, and a New Visual Semiotic’, Education, Communication & Information, 1, 2, 2001, pp. 155–79.
Educational Issues
25. Margaret Mackey, ‘Television and the Teenage Literate: Discourses of Felicity’, College English, 65, 4, 2003, pp. 389–410.
Part 4. Media Literacies: Playing Games
Theoretical and Historical Framing
26. Barry Atkins, ‘What Are We Really Looking At?: The Future-Orientation of Video Game Play’, Games and Culture, 1, 2, 2006, pp. 127–40.
27. Alexander R. Galloway, ‘Allegories of Control’, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), pp. 85–106.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
28. Edward Castronova, ‘Daily Life on a Synthetic Earth’, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 29–50.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
29. Julian Sefton-Green, ‘Initiation Rites: A Small Boy in a Poke-World’, in Joseph Tobin (ed.), Pikachu’s Global Adventures: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 141–64.
Critical Understanding
30. Mizuko Ito, ‘Technologies of the Childhood Imagination: Yugioh, Media Mixes, and Everyday Cultural Production’, in Joe Karaganis and Natalie Jeremijenko (eds.), Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (Durham, SC: Duke University Press, 2007).
Educational Issues
31. James Paul Gee, ‘Semiotic Domains: Is Playing Video Games a "Waste of Time"?’, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 24–50.
32. David Buckingham and Julian Sefton-Green, ‘Gotta Catch ’em all: Structure, Agency and Pedagogy in Children’s Media Culture’, Media, Culture & Society, 25, 2003, pp. 379–99.
Part 5. Media Literacies: Using the Internet
Theoretical and Historical Framing
33. Donald J. Leu, Jr., Charles K. Kinzer, Lulie L. Coiro, and Dana W. Cammack, ‘Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging from the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies’, in Robert B. Ruddell and Norman J. Unrau (eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, 5th edn. (Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2004), pp. 1570–99.
34. P. David Marshall, ‘The Internet: The Multimedia-accessible Universe and the User’, New Media Cultures (London: Arnold, 2004), pp. 45–60.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
35. Daniel Miller and Don Slater, ‘Trinidad and the Internet: An Overview’, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (Oxford: Berg, 2000), pp. 27–44, 52–3.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
36. Sally J. McMillan and Margaret Morrison, ‘Coming of Age with the Internet: A Qualitative Exploration of How the Internet has become an Integral Part of Young People’s Lives’, New Media & Society, 8, 1, 2006, pp. 73–95.
Critical Understanding
37. Bertram C. Bruce, ‘Credibility of the Web: Why We Need Dialectical Reading’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34, 1, 2000, pp. 97–109.
Educational Issues
38. Ellen Seiter, ‘The Internet Playground’, in Jeffrey Goldstein, David Buckingham, and Gilles Brougere (eds.), Toys, Games, and Media (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), pp. 93–108.
VOLUME III
Part 6. Media Literacies: Interacting with Other People
Theoretical and Historical Framing
39. Kevin M. Leander and Kelly K. McKim, ‘Tracing the Everyday "Sitings" of Adolescents on the Internet: A Strategic Adaptation of Ethnography Across Online and Offline Spaces’, Education, Communication & Information, 3, 2, 2003, pp. 211–40.
40. Sherry Turkle, ‘Computational Technologies and Images of the Self’, Social Research, 64, 3, 1997, 1093–111.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
41. Mizuko Ito and Daisuke Okabe, ‘Intimate Connections: Contextualizing Japanese Youth and Mobile Messaging’, in Richard Harper, Leysia Palen, and Alex Taylor (eds.), The Inside Text: Social, Cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2005), pp. 127–45.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
42. Julia Davies, ‘’Hello newbie! J **big welcome hugs** hope u like it here as much as I do! J ’: An Exploration of Teenagers’ Informal Online Learning’, in David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett (eds.), Digital Generations: Children, Young People, and New Media (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006) pp. 211–28.
Critical Understanding
43. Gloria E. Jacobs, ‘Fast Times and Digital Literacy: Participation Roles and Portfolio Construction within Instant Messaging’, Journal of Literacy Research, 38, 2, 2006, pp. 171–96.
Educational Issues
44. Cynthia Lewis and Bettina Fabos, ‘Instant Messaging, Literacies, and Social Identities’, Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 4, 2005, pp. 470–501.
Part 7. Media Literacies: Seeking Information
Theoretical and Historical Framing
45. Jay L. Lemke, ‘Travels in Hypermodality’, Visual Communication, 1, 3, 2002, pp. 299–325.
46. Vannevar Bush, ‘As We May Think’, Atlantic Monthly, 176, 1, 1945, pp. 101–8.
47. Carol Collier Kuhlthau, ‘Learning in Digital Libraries: An Information Search Process Approach’, Library Trends, 45, 4, 1997, pp. 708–25.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
48. Kirsty Williamson, ‘Discovered by Chance: The Role of Incidental Information Acquisition in an Ecological Model of Information Use’, Library & Information Science Research, 20, 1, 1998, pp. 23–40.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
49. Jose van Dijck, ‘From Shoebox to Performative Agent: The Computer as Personal Memory Machine’, New Media & Society, 7, 3, 2005, pp. 311–32.
Critical Understanding
50. Allan Luke, ‘When Basic Skills and Information Processing Just Aren’t Enough: Rethinking Reading in New Times’, Teachers College Record, 97, 1, 1995, pp. 95–115.
Educational Issues
50. Colin Lankshear, Michael Peters, and Michele Knobel, ‘Information, Knowledge and Learning: Some Issues Facing Epistemology and Education in a Digital Age’, Journal of the Philosophy of Education, 34, 1, 2000, pp. 17–39.
Part 8. Media Literacies: Reading and Writing in a Context of Multimodality
Theoretical and Historical Framing
51. Michel de Certeau, ‘Reading as Poaching’, in The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 165–76.
52. Kathleen Burnett and Eliza T. Dresang, ‘Rhizomorphic Reading: The Emergence of a New Aesthetic in Literature for Youth’, Library Quarterly, 69, 4, 1999, pp. 421–45.
53. Richard A. Lanham, ‘What’s Next for Text?’, Education, Communication & Information, 1, 1, 2001, pp. 15–36.
Literate Development in Practice
Tacit Awareness
54. Philip Pullman, ‘Invisible Pictures’, Signal: Approaches to Children’s Books, 60, 1989, pp. 160–86.
Explicit/Articulated Perceptions
55. Jill Kedersha McClay, ‘Hidden "Treasure": New Genres, New Media and the Teaching of Writing’, English in Education, 36, 1, 2002, pp. 46–55.
56. Guy Merchant, ‘Digikids: Cool Dudes and the New Writing’, E-Learning, 2, 1, 2005, pp. 50–60.
Critical Understanding
57. Henry Jenkins, ‘Scribbling in the Margins: Fan Readers/Fan Writers’, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 152–77.
Educational Issues
58. Eve Bearne, ‘Playing with Possibilities: Children’s Multidimensional Texts’, in Eve Bearne, Henrietta Dombey, and Teresa Grainger (eds.), Classroom Interactions in Literacy (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003), pp. 129–43.
VOLUME IV
Part 9. Media Literacies: Engines of Change
Aesthetic Developments
59. Peter Lunenfeld, ‘Unfinished Business’, in idem (ed.), The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 7–22.
60. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, ‘Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation’, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 19–50.
Corporate Priorities
Financing Development
61. Mia Consalvo, ‘Console Video Games and Global Corporations: Creating a Hybrid Culture’, New Media & Society, 8, 1, 2006, pp. 117–37.
Advertising and Branding
62. Anthony Fung, ‘"Think Globally, Act Locally": China’s Rendezvous with MTV’, Global Media and Communication, 2, 1, 2006, pp. 71–88.
63. Mark Phillips, ‘The Global Disney Audiences Project: Disney Across Cultures’, in Janet Wasko, Mark Phillips, and Eileen R. Meehan (eds.), Dazzled by Disney? The Global Disney Audiences Project (London: Leicester University Press, 2001), pp. 31–61.
Political Pressures
Access
64. Susan B. Neuman and Donna Celano, ‘The Knowledge Gap: Implications of Leveling the Playing Field for Low-Income and Middle-Income Children’, Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 2, 2006, pp. 176–201.
65. Gado Alzouma, ‘Myths of Digital Technology in Africa: Leapfrogging Development?’, Global Media and Communication, 1, 3, 2005, pp. 339–56.
Censorship
66. Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, ‘How Governments Rule the Net’, Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 65–85.
67. Steve Westbrook, ‘Visual Rhetoric in a Culture of Fear: Impediments to Multimedia Production’, College English, 68, 5, 2006, pp. 457–80.
Global Accelerators of Change
Sports
68. Michael R. Real, ‘MediaSport: Technology and the Commodification of Postmodern Sport’, in Lawrence A. Wenner (ed.), MediaSport (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 14–26.
Religious Communication
69. Stewart M. Hoover, ‘Religion, Media and Identity: Theory and Method in Audience Research on Religion and Media’, in Jolyon Mitchell and Sophia Marriage (eds.), Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture (London: T & T Clark, 2003), pp. 9–19.
70. Jon W. Anderson, ‘The Internet and Islam’s New Interpreters’, in Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson (eds.), New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, 2nd edn. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 45–60.
International Movement and Exchange
71. Brenda Chan, ‘Imagining the Homeland: The Internet and Diasporic Discourse of Nationalism’, Journal of Communication Inquiry, 29, 4, 2005, pp. 336–68.
72. Victoria Bernal, ‘Diaspora, Cyberspace and Political Imagination: The Eritrean Diaspora Online’, Globe Networks, 6, 2, 2006, pp. 161–79.
73. Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe with Yi-Huey Guo and Lu Liu, ‘Globalization and Agency: Designing and Redesigning the Literacies of Cyberspace’, College English, 58, 6, 2006, pp. 619–36.
74. Hilary Janks Hilary and Barbara Comber, ‘Critical Literacy across Continents’, in Kate Pahl and Jennifer Rowsell (eds.), Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies: New Perspectives on Language & Education (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2006), pp. 95–117.
75. Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, ‘The Global Flow of Visual Culture’, Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 315–48.
Biography
Margaret Mackey is a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is co-editor-in-chief of Children’s Literature in Education: An International Quarterly, and has published widely on young people, their literate behaviours and their texts in a wide variety of media.
