DIGITAL LITERACY AND THE DEATH OF COMMUNITY

implications for education

John Carter McKnightAdjunct Professor of Law

Sandra Day O’Connor College of LawArizona State University

VWBPE 2011

who and why

adjunct professor of law PhD student, Human & Social

Dimensions of Science & Technology former officer/director, science

education nonprofits Marketing/Communications in SL

communities

what’s digital literacy?

literacy: the ability to receive and transmit meaning using a particular technology

(an STS spin on socio-linguistics)

print literacy: the ability to read and write texts

digital literacy: the ability to receive and transmit meaning using a range of computer tools

that’s probably important

it’s a world of screens – people probably should be able to use them

but all tool use involves power

“any view of literacy is inherently political, in the sense of involving relations of power among people” – James Paul Gee

“artifacts have politics” – Langdon Winner

“technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral” – Melvin Kranzberg

so what are the power relations?

communities associations networks

communities

you don’t choose your neighbors “socially integrative” bad side – they can brutally enforce

conformity good side – belonging, clarity

associations

de Toqueville and on – American democracy is built on associations

where people gain “democratic literacy” by making political meaning

“bowling alone” for 3 generations now

networks

“the first fax machine was worthless” what would the politics of the

network become?

networks

a democratic renaissance online? “declaration of independence of

cyberspace” 1996

the california ideology

the electronic frontier foundation mitch kapor linden lab burning man

the view from harvard

guess what? the hippies lost

artifacts have politics

community: politics of all of us association: politics of kinds of us network: politics of me and

mine

sherry turkle says -

- kids these days are feeling themselves victims of technological determinism

- their parents are more interested in their BlackBerries

- digital literacy = vast social pressure- high school social media, the worst

of community and network?

who has power in the network? me!

I can make my echo chamber the network owner

why is facebook free? the data miners

big brother was a punk kid

good for community?

probably not everything from transit and housing

choices to high school socializing to gaming suggests,

we want to choose our ties

so we get this -

ok, but what about digital creativity?

we’ve put a movie studio, a recording studio and a printing press on every desk

what about the politics of that?

the biggest revolution ever?

the empire strikes back

secret copyright treaties “enclosure acts” for the information

commons criminalizing the creative process

digital literacy – who gets the power? what’s our responsibility as

teachers? “nothing could be more crucial to

democracy than the education of itscitizens” - Martha Nussbaum

citizenship and civilization – “playing well with others”

we don’t, we don’t want to, and digital literacy empowers us not to

being here is a political statement

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one." - Malcolm Reynolds

what do we do?

ask the network, of course!

let’s keep talking

john.mcknight@asu.edu johncartermcknight.com