new technologies/new literacies: reconstructing education...

Teaching Education Vol 11 No 3 2000

New TechnologiesNew Literaciesreconstructing education for the newmillenniumDOUGLAS KELLNERGeorge F Kneller Philosophy of Education Chair Social Sciences and Comparative

Education UCLA Graduate School of Education amp Information Studies 3022B

Moore Hall Mailbox 95121 Los Angeles CA 90095-1521 USA

ABSTRACT In a period of dramatic technological and social change educators need to

foster a variety of new types of literacies to make education relevant to the demands of a

new millennium My assumptions are that new technologies are altering every aspect of our

society and culture and that we need to comprehend and make use of them both to

understand and transform our worlds Introducing new literacies to empower individuals

and groups traditionally excluded would require a reconstruction of education to make it

more responsive to the challenges of a democratic and multicultural society This project

would involve a strong emphasis on print literacy combined with development of media

literacy computer and information literacies and an expanded concept of multiple litera-

cies to help reconstruct and democratize education and society

As we enter a new millennium most people are by now aware that we are in themidst of one of the most dramatic technological revolutions in history that ischanging everything from the ways that we work communicate and spend ourleisure time The technological revolution centers on computer information com-munication and multimedia technologies is often interpreted as the beginnings ofa knowledge or information society and therefore ascribes education a central rolein every aspect of life This Great Transformation poses tremendous challenges toeducators to rethink their basic tenets to deploy the new technologies in creativeand productive ways and to restructure schooling to respond constructively andprogressively to the technological and social changes that we are now experiencingAt the same time that we are undergoing technological revolution importantdemographic and socio-political changes are occurring in the United States andthroughout the world Emigration patterns have brought an explosion of newpeoples into the US in recent decades and the country is now more racially andethnically diverse more multicultural than ever before This creates the challenge

ISSN 1047-6210 (print)ISSN 1470-1286 (online)00030245-21Oacute 2000 Graduate School of Education University of QueenslandDOI 10108010476210020021608

246 D Kellner

of providing people from diverse races classes and backgrounds with the tools andcompetencies to enable them to succeed and participate in an ever more complexand changing world1 In this paper I argue that we need multiple literacies for ourmulticultural society that we need to develop new literacies to meet the challengeof the new technologies and that literacies of diverse sortsETH including a morefundamental importance for print literacyETH are of crucial importance in restructur-ing education for a high tech and multicultural society and global culture Myargument is that in a period of dramatic technological and social change educationneeds to cultivate a variety of new types of literacies to make education relevant tothe demands of a new millennium My assumptions are that new technologies arealtering every aspect of our society and culture and that we need to comprehendand make use of them both to understand and transform our worlds My goal wouldbe to introduce new literacies to empower individuals and groups traditionallyexcluded and thus to reconstruct education to make it more responsive to thechallenges of a democratic and multicultural society

Technology and the Restructuring of Education

To dramatize the issues at stake we should seriously consider the claim that we arenow undergoing one of the most signireg cant technological revolutions for educationsince the transition from oral to print and book based teaching2 Just as the progressto print literacy and book culture involved a dramatic transformation of educationas Marshall McLuhan (1961 1964) Walter Ong (1988) and others have argued sotoo does the current technological revolution require a major restructuring ofeducation today with new curricula pedagogy literacies practices and goalsFurthermore I want to argue that the technological revolution of the present eramakes possible the radical reconstruction and restructuring of education and societyargued for in the progressive era by Dewey and in the 1960s and 1970s by IvanIllich Paolo Freire and others who sought radical educational and social reform3Put in historical perspective it is now possible to see modern education as prep-aration for industrial civilization and minimal citizenship in a passive representativedemocracy The demands of the new global economy culture and polity require amore informed participatory and active citizenship and thus increased roles andchallenges for education Modern education in short emphasizes submission toauthority rote memorization and what Freire called the ordf banking conceptordm ofeducation in which learned teachers deposit knowledge into passive studentsinculcating conformity subordination and normalization These traits are becomingobsolete in a global postindustrial and networked society with its demands for newskills for the workplace participation in new social and political environs andinteraction within forms of culture and everyday life

In short I wish to argue that the technological revolution renders necessary thesort of thorough restructuring of education that radicals demanded during the lastcentury indeed back to the Enlightenment if one includes Rousseau and Wollstone-craft who saw the restructuring of education as the key to democracy Todayhowever intense pressures for change now come directly from technology and the

New technologiesnew literacies 247

economy and not ideology or educational reformist ideas with a new globaleconomy and new technologies demanding new skills competencies literacies andpractices While this technological revolution has highly ambiguous effectsETH that Irsquo llnote in this studyETH it provides educational reformers with the challenge of whethereducation will be restructured to promote democracy and human needs or whethereducation will be transformed primarily to serve the needs of business and the globaleconomy

It is therefore a burning question what sort of restructuring will take place inwhose interests and for what ends Indeed more than ever we need philosophicalremacr ection on the ends and purposes of education on what we are doing and tryingto achieve in our educational practices and institutions In this situation it may beinstructive to return to Dewey and see the connections between education anddemocracy the need for the reconstruction of education and society and the valueof experimental pedagogy to seek solutions to the problems of education in thepresent day Hence a progressive reconstruction of education will require that it bedone in the interests of democratization ensuring access to new technologies for allhelping to overcome the so-called digital divide and divisions of the haves and havenots so that education is placed aAacute la Dewey (1997 [1916]) and Freire (1972 1998)in the service of democracy and social justice

Yet we should be more aware than Dewey of the obduracy of divisions of classgender and race and work self-consciously for multicultural democracy and edu-cation This requires that we valorize difference and cultural specireg city as well asequality and shared universal Deweyean values such as freedom equality individu-alism and participation Theorizing a democratic and multicultural reconstructionof education thus forces us to confront the digital divide that there are divisionsbetween information and technology have and have-nots just as there are classgender and race divisions in every sphere of the existing constellations of society andculture The latest surveys of the digital divide however indicate that the keyindicators are class and education and not race and gender hence the often-circu-lated argument that new technologies merely reinforce the hegemony of upper classwhite males must be questioned4

With the proper resources policies pedagogies and practices we can I believework to reduce the (unfortunately growing) gap between haves and have-notsalthough I want to make clear that I do not believe that technology alone will sufreg ceto democratize and adequately reconstruct education That is technology itself doesnot necessarily improve teaching and learning and will certainly not of itselfovercome acute socio-economic divisions Indeed without proper resources peda-gogy and educational practices technology might be an obstacle or burden togenuine learning and will probably increase rather than overcome existing divisionsof power cultural capital and wealth

Studies of the implementation of technology in the schools reveal that withoutadequate teaching training and technology policy the results of introducing comput-ers and new technologies into education are highly ambiguous5 During the rest ofthis paper I want to focus on the role of computers and information technology incontemporary education and the need for new pedagogies and an expanded concept

248 D Kellner

of literacy to respond to the importance of new technologies in every aspect oflife My goal will be to propose some ways that new technologies and new literaciescan serve as efreg cacious learning tools which will contribute to producing a moredemocratic and egalitarian society and not just providing skills and tools toprivileged individuals and groups that will improve their cultural capital andsocial power at the expense of others How indeed are we going to restructureeducation to provide individuals and groups with the tools the competencies theliteracies to overcome the class gender and racial divides that bifurcate our societyand at least in terms of economic indicators seem to be growing rather thandiminishing

Before taking on this challenge we must address the technophobic argumentagainst new technologies per se I have been developing what I call a critical theoryof technology that criticizes uses or types of technology as tools of domination thatrejects the hype and pretensions of new technologies that sees the limitations ofpedagogy and educational proposals based primarily on technology without ad-equate emphasis on pedagogy on teacher and student empowerment that insists ondeveloping educational reform and restructuring to promote multicultural democ-racy and that calls for appropriate restructuring of technology to democraticeducation and society Yet a critical theory of technology also sees how technologycan be used and perhaps redesigned and restructured for positive purposes such asenhancing education democracy overcoming the divide between haves and havenots while enabling individuals to democratically and creatively participate in a neweconomy society and culture6

Hence a critical theory of technology avoids both technophobia and technophiliaIt rejects technological determinism is critical of the limitations biases and down-sides of new technologies but wants to use and redesign technologies for educationfor democracy and social reconstruction in the interests of social justice It is alsoin the Deweyean spirit pragmatic and experimental recognizing that there is noagreed upon way to deploy new technologies for enhancing education and democra-tization Thus we must be prepared to accept that some of the attempts to usetechnology for education may well fail as have no doubt many of our own attemptsto use new technologies for education A critical theory of technology is aware thattechnologies have unforeseen consequences and that good intentions and seeminglygood projects may have results that were not desired or positiveETH but such is life andit is now a time to be daring and innovative and not conservative and stodgy in ourrethinking of education and the use of new technologies in educational practices andpedagogies

Consequently the question is not whether computers are good or bad in theclassroom or more broadly for education Rather it is a question of what to do withthem what useful purposes can computers serve what sort of skills do students andteachers need to effectively deploy computers and information technology what sortof effects might computers and information technology have on learning and whatnew literacies views of education and social relations do we need to democratizeand improve education today7


Education and Literacy

Both traditionalists and reformists would probably agree that education and literacyare intimately connected ordf Literacyordm in my conception comprises gaining competen-cies involved in effectively using socially-constructed forms of communication andrepresentation Learning literacies involves attaining competencies in practices incontexts that are governed by rules and conventions Literacies are socially con-structed in educational and cultural practices involved in various institutionaldiscourses and practices Literacies evolve and shift in response to social and culturalchange and the interests of elites who control hegemonic institutions

Literary thus involves gaining the skills and knowledge to read and interpret thetext of the world and to successfully navigate and negotiate its challenges conmacr ictsand crises Literacy is thus a necessary condition to equip people to participate in thelocal national and global economy culture and polity As Dewey argued (1997)education is necessary to enable people to participate in democracy and thuswithout an educated informed and literate citizenry a robust democracy is imposs-ible Moreover there are crucial links between literacy democracy empowermentand participation and without developing adequate literacies differences betweenhaves and have nots cannot be overcome and individuals and groups will be left outof the emerging economy networked society and culture

To reading writing and traditional print literacies one could argue that in an eraof technological revolution and new technologies we need to develop new forms ofmedia literacy computer literacy and multimedia literacies that I and others call bythe covering concept of ordf multiliteraciesordm or ordf multiple literaciesordm 8 New technologiesand cultural forms require new skills and competencies and if education is to berelevant to the problems and challenges of contemporary life it must expand theconcept of literacy and develop new curricula and pedagogies

I would resist however extreme claims that the era of the book and print literacyare over Although there are discontinuities and novelties in the current constel-lation there are also important continuities Indeed one could argue that in the newinformationplusmn communication technology environment traditional print literacy takeson increasing importance in the computer-mediated cyberworld as one needs tocritically scrutinize and scroll tremendous amounts of information putting newemphasis on developing reading and writing abilities For instance Internet dis-cussion groups chat rooms e-mail and various forums require writing skills inwhich a new emphasis on the importance of clarity and precision is emerging ascommunications proliferate In this context of information saturation it becomes anethical imperative not to contribute to cultural and information overload and toconcisely communicate onersquo s thoughts and feelings

Media Literacy an unfulfilled challenge

In the new multimedia environment media literacy is arguably more important thanever Cultural studies and critical pedagogy have begun to teach us to recognize theubiquity of media culture in contemporary society the growing trends toward

250 D Kellner

multicultural education and the need for media literacy that addresses the issue ofmulticultural and social difference9 There is expanding recognition that mediarepresentations help construct our images and understanding of the world and thateducation must meet the dual challenges of teaching media literacy in a multicul-tural society and sensitizing students and publics to the inequities and injustices ofa society based on gender race and class inequalities and discrimination Recentcritical studies see the role of mainstream media in exacerbating or diminishing theseinequalities and the ways that media education and the production of alternativemedia can help create a healthy multiculturalism of diversity and more robustdemocracy They thus confront some of the most serious difreg culties and problemsthat face us as educators and citizens as we move toward the twenty-reg rst century

Yet despite the ubiquity of media culture in contemporary society and everydaylife although it is widely recognized that the media themselves are a form ofpedagogy and despite copious criticisms of the distorted values ideals and repre-sentations of the world in media culture media education in K-12 schooling hasnever really been established and developed The current technological revolutionhowever brings to the fore more than ever the role of media like television popularmusic reg lm and advertising as the Internet rapidly absorbs these cultural forms andcreates new cyberspaces and forms of culture and pedagogy It is highly irresponsiblein the face of saturation by Internet and media culture to ignore these forms ofsocialization and education consequently a critical reconstruction of educationshould produce pedagogies that provide media literacy and enable students teach-ers and citizens to discern the nature and effects of media culture

Media culture teaches proper and improper behavior gender roles values andknowledge of the world One is often not aware that one is being educated andconstructed by media culture thus its pedagogy is often invisible and subliminalrequiring critical approaches that make us aware of how media construct meaningsinmacr uence and educate audiences and impose their messages and values A medialiterate person is skillful in analyzing media codes and conventions able to criticizestereotypes values and ideologies and competent to interpret the multiple mean-ings and messages generated by media texts Media literacy thus helps people to usemedia intelligently to discriminate and evaluate media content to critically dissectmedia forms and to investigate media effects and uses (see Kellner 1995ab)

Yet within educational circles there is a debate over what constitutes the reg eld ofmedia pedagogy with different agendas and programs A traditionalistordf protectionistordm approach would attempt to ordf inoculateordm young people against theeffects of media addiction and manipulation by cultivating a taste for book literacyhigh culture and the values of truth beauty and justice and by denigrating allforms of media and computer culture Neil Postman in his books Amusing Ourselves

to Death (1985) and Technopoly (1992) exemplireg es this approach A ordf media literacyordmmovement by contrast attempts to teach students to read analyze and decodemedia texts in a fashion parallel to the cultivation of print literacy Media artseducation in turn teaches students to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of media andto use various media technologies as instruments of self-expression and creationCritical media literacy in my conception builds on these approaches analyzing


media culture as products of social production and struggle and teaching studentsto be critical of media representations and discourses but also stressing the import-ance of learning to use the media as modes of self-expression and social activism

Developing critical media literacy and pedagogy also involves perceiving howmedia like reg lm or video can also be used positively to teach a wide range of topicslike multicultural understanding and education If for example multicultural edu-cation is to champion genuine diversity and expand the curriculum it is importantboth for groups excluded from mainstream education to learn about their ownheritage and for dominant groups to explore the experiences and voices of minorityand excluded groups Thus media literacy can promote multicultural literacyconceived as understanding and engaging the heterogeneity of cultures and subcul-tures that constitute an increasingly global and multicultural world10

Critical media literacy not only teaches students to learn from media to resistmedia manipulation and to use media materials in constructive ways but it isconcerned with developing skills that will cultivate citizens and that will make themmore motivated and competent participants in social life Critical media literacy isthus tied to the project of radical democracy and concerned to develop skills that willenhance democratization and participation Critical media literacy takes a compre-hensive approach that would teach critical skills and how to use media as instru-ments of social communication and change The technologies of communication arebecoming more and more accessible to young people and average citizens and canbe used to promote education democratic self-expression and social progressThus technologies that could help produce the end of participatory democracy bytransforming politics into media spectacles and the battle of images and by turningspectators into cultural zombies could also be used to help invigorate democraticdebate and participation (Kellner 1990 1995a)

Indeed teaching critical media literacy could be a participatory collaborativeproject Watching television shows or reg lms together could promote productivediscussions between teachers and students (or parents and children) with emphasison eliciting student views producing a variety of interpretations of media texts andteaching basic principles of hermeneutics and criticism Students and youth areoften more media savvy knowledgeable and immersed in media culture than theirteachers and thus can contribute to the educational process through sharing theirideas perceptions and insights On the other hand critical discussion debate andanalysis ought to be encouraged with teachers bringing to bear their critical perspec-tives on student readings of media material Since media culture is often part andparcel of studentsrsquo identity and most powerful cultural experience teachers must besensitive in criticizing artifacts and perceptions that students hold dear yet anatmosphere of critical respect for difference and inquiry into the nature and effectsof media culture should be promoted

Media literacy thus involves developing conceptions of interpretation and criti-cism Engaging in assessment and evaluation of media texts is particularly challeng-ing and requires careful discussion of specireg c moral pedagogical political oraesthetic criteria of critique That is one can a la British cultural studies engage thepolitics of representation discussing the specireg c images of gender class race

252 D Kellner

ethnicity sexual preference or other identity categories in media texts (Kellner1995a) Or one could discuss the moral values and behavior represented whatspecireg c messages or representations of social experience are presented how they areinterpreted by audiences and potential pedagogical effects One can also attempt todetermine criteria for aesthetic evaluation discussing what constitutes a good or badmedia text

In developing media literacy one needs to develop sensitivity to visual imagerysound and discourse as well as narrative structure and textual meaning and effectsThus one draws upon the aesthetics developed in literary reg lm and video and artstudies combining such material in addressing the specireg cities of the particular textor artifact in question Media studies is exciting and challenging in that it canembrace artifacts ranging from familiar reg lm and television programs to popularmusic to buildings and cities

A major challenge in developing critical media literacy however results from thefact that it is not a pedagogy in the traditional sense with reg rmly establishedprinciples a canon of texts and tried-and-true teaching procedures Critical mediapedagogy is in its infancy it is just beginning to produce results and is thus moreopen and experimental than established print-oriented teaching methods Moreoverthe material of media culture is so polymorphous multivalent and polysemic thatit requires sensitivity to different readings interpretations perceptions of the com-plex images scenes narratives meanings and messages of media culture which inits own ways is as complex and challenging to critically decipher as book culture

It is also highly instructive to teach students at all levels to critically explorepopular media materials including the most familiar reg lm television music andother forms of media culture Yet here one needs to avoid an uncritical mediapopulism of the sort that is emerging within certain sectors of British and NorthAmerican cultural studies In a review of Rethinking media literacy (McLarenHammer Sholle amp Reilly 1995) for instance Jon Lewis attacked what he saw as theoverly critical postures of the contributors to this volume arguing ordf If the point ofa critical media literacy is to meet students halfwayETH to begin to take seriously whatthey take seriously to read what they read to watch what they watchETH teachers must

learn to love pop cultureordm (1996 p 26) Note the authoritarian injunction thatordf teachers must learn to love popular cultureordm (italics are Lewisrsquo ) followed by anattack on more critical approaches to media literacy

Teaching critical media literacy however involves occupation of a site above thedichotomy of fandom and censor One can teach how media culture providessignireg cant statements or insights about the social world empowering visions ofgender race and class or complex aesthetic structures and practices thus puttinga positive spin on how it can provide signireg cant contributions to education Yet oneought to indicate also how media culture can advance sexism racism ethnocen-trism homophobia and other forms of prejudice as well as misinformation prob-lematic ideologies and questionable values thus promoting a dialectical approach tothe media

Furthermore critical media literacy teaching should engage studentsrsquo interestsand concerns and involve a collaborative approach between teachers and students


since students are deeply absorbed in media culture and may know more aboutsome of its artifacts and domains than their teachers Consequently students shouldbe encouraged to speak discuss and intervene in the teachinglearning process Thisis not to say that media literacy training romanticize student views however thatmay be superreg cial mistaken uninformed and full of various problematical biasesYet exercises in media literacy can often productively involve intense studentparticipation in a mutual learning process where both teachers and students togetherlearn media literacy skills and competencies

It is also probably a mistake to attempt to institute a topplusmn down program of medialiteracy imposed from above on teachers with reg xed texts curricula and prescribedmaterials Diverse teachers and students will have very different interests andconcerns and will naturally emphasize varying subject matter and choose examplesrelevant to their own and their student interests Courses in critical media literacycould thus be macr exible enough to enable teachers and students to constitute their owncurricula to address material and topics of current concern and to engage their owninterests Moreover and crucially educators should discern that we are in the midstof one of the most intense technological revolutions in history and must learn toadapt new computer technologies to education as I suggest in the following sectionand this requires the development of new literacies

Computer Literacy An Expanded Concept

In this section that is looking toward education in the new millennium I want toargue that students should learn new forms of computer literacy that involve bothhow to use computer technologies to do research and gather information as well asto perceive computer culture as a terrain which contains texts spectacles gamesand interactive multimedia which requires new literacies Moreover computerculture is a discursive and political location in which students teachers and citizenscan all intervene engaging in discussion groups and collaborative research projectscreating their web sites producing innovative multimedia for cultural disseminationand engaging in novel modes of social interaction and learning Computer cultureenables individuals to actively participate in the production of culture ranging fromdiscussion of public issues to creation of their own cultural forms However to takepart in this culture requires not only accelerated skills of print literacy which areoften restricted to the growing elite of students who are privileged to attendadequate and superior public and private schools but also demands new forms ofliteracy as well thus posing signireg cant challenges to education

It is a dereg ning fact of the present age that computer culture is proliferating andtransforming every dimension of life from work to education thus to respondintelligently to the dramatic technological revolution of our time we need to beginteaching computer literacy from an early age on Computer literacy however itselfneeds to be theorized Often the term is synonymous with technical ability to usecomputers to master existing programs and maybe undertake some programmingoneself I suggest expanding the conception of computer literacy from using com-puter programs and hardware to a broader concept of information and multicultural

254 D Kellner

literacy This requires cultivating more sophisticated abilities in traditional readingand writing as well as the capability to critically dissect cultural forms taught as partof critical media literacy and multimedia pedagogy

In my expanded conception computer literacy thus involves learning how to usecomputers access information and educational material use e-mail and list-servesand construct websites Computer literacy comprises the accessing and processing ofdiverse sorts of information proliferating in the so-called ordf information societyordm (forcritiques of this concept see Webster 1995) It encompasses learning to reg nd sourcesof information ranging from traditional sites like libraries and print media to newInternet websites and search engines Computerplusmn information literacy involves learn-ing where information is found how to access it and how to organize interpret andevaluate the information that one seeks

One exciting development in the current technological revolution is that librarymaterials and information are accessible from the entire world To some extent theInternet is potentially the all-encompassing library imperfectly constructed in Alex-ander Egypt that would contain the great books of the world Yet while amind-boggling amount of the classics are found on the Internet we still need thelocal library to access and collect books journals and print material not found onthe Internet as well as the essential texts of various disciplines and the culture as awhole Information literacy however and the new tasks for librarians thus alsoinvolve knowing what one can and cannot reg nd on the Internet how to reg nd it andwhere the most reliable and useful information is found for specireg c tasks andprojects

But computer and information literacies also involve learning how to read hyper-texts traverse the ever-changing reg elds of cyberculture and to participate in a digitaland interactive multimedia culture that encompasses work education politicsculture and everyday lifeETH as I argue in the next section There are two majormodes and concepts of hypertext one that is primarily literary that involves newavant-garde literarywriting strategies and practices contrasted to one that is moremultimedia multisemiotic multimodal and that mushroomed into the World WideWeb Hypertext was initially seen as an innovative and exciting new mode of writingthat increased potentials for writers to explore new modes of textuality and ex-pression (Landow 1992 1997) As multimedia hypertext developed on the Inter-net it was soon theorized as a multisemiotic and multimodal form ofcommunication that is now increasingly seen as the dominant form of a newhyperlinked interactive and multimedia cyberculture (see Burbules amp Callister1996 2000 Snyder 1996 and the articles in Snyder 1997)11

Hence on this conception genuine computer literacy involves not just technicalknowledge and skills but rereg ned reading writing research and communicatingability that involves heightened capacities for critically accessing analyzing inter-preting processing and storing both print-based and multimedia material In a newinformationentertainment society immersed in revolutionized multimedia technol-ogy knowledge and information come not merely in the form of print and wordsbut through images sounds and multimedia material as well Computer literacythus also involves the ability to discover and access information and intensireg ed


abilities to read to scan texts and computer data bases and websites and to accessinformation and images in a variety of forms ranging from graphics to visualimages to audio and video materials to good old print media The creation of newmultimedia websites data bases and texts requires accessing downloading andorganizing digitized verbal imagistic and audio and video material that are the newbuilding blocks of multimedia texts

Within multimedia computer culture visual literacy takes on increased import-ance On the whole computer screens are more graphic visual and interactive thanconventional print reg elds which disconcerted many of us when reg rst confronted withthe new environments Icons windows mouses and the various clicking linkingand interaction by computer-mediated hypertext requires new competencies and adramatic expansion of literacy Visuality is obviously crucial leading one to quicklyscan visual reg elds perceive and interact with icons and graphics and use technicaldevices like a mouse to access the desired material and reg eld But tactility is alsoimportant as one must learn navigational skills of how to proceed from one reg eld andscreen to another how to negotiate hypertexts and links and how to move from oneprogram to another if one operates as most now do in a window-based computerenvironment

Thus in my expanded conception computer literacy involves technical abilitiesconcerning developing basic typing skills mastering computer programs accessinginformation and using computer technologies for a variety of purposes ranging fromverbal communication to artistic expression to political debate There are ever morehybrid implosions between media and computer culture as audio and video materialbecomes part of the Internet as CD-ROM and multimedia develop and as newtechnologies become part and parcel of the home school and workplace Thereforethe skills of decoding images sounds and spectacle learned in critical media literacytraining can also be valuable as part of computer literacy as well

Multimedia and Multiple Literacies The New Frontier

The new multimedia environments thus require a diversity of types of multisemioticand multimodal interaction involving interfacing with words and print material andoften images graphics and audio and video material As technological convergencedevelops apace one needs to combine the skills of critical media literacy withtraditional print literacy and new forms of multiple literacies to access and masterthe new multimedia hypertext environments Literacy in this conception involves theabilities to engage effectively in socially constructed forms of communication andrepresentation Thus reading and interpreting print was the appropriate mode ofliteracy for books while critical media literacy requires reading and interpretingdiscourse images spectacle narratives and the forms and genres of media cultureForms of multimedia communication involve print speech visuality and audio ina hybrid reg eld which combines these forms all of which involve skills of interpretingand critique

The term ordf multiple literaciesordm thus points to the many different kinds of literaciesneeded to access interpret criticize and participate in the emergent new forms of

256 D Kellner

culture and society12 Obviously the key root here is the multiple the proliferationof media and forms that require a multiplicity of competencies and skills andabilities to access interact and help construct a new semiotic terrain Multipleliteracies involve reading across multiple and hybrid semiotic reg elds and being ableto critically and hermeneutically process print graphics images as well as movingimages and sounds The term ordf hybridityordm suggests the combination and interactionof diverse media and the need to synthesize the various forms in an active processof the construction of meaning Reading a music video for instance involvesprocessing images music spectacle and sometimes narrative in a multisemioticactivity that simultaneously draws on diverse aesthetic forms Interacting with awebsite or CD-ROM often involves scanning text graphics moving images andclicking onto the reg elds that one seeks to peruse and explore looking for appropriatematerial This might involve drawing on a multiplicity of materials in new interactivelearning or entertainment environments whereby one must simultaneously read andinterpret images graphics animation and text

While traditional literacies concern practices in contexts that are governed by rulesand conventions the conventions and rules of multiliteracies are currently evolvingso that their pedagogies comprise a new although bustling and competitive reg eldMultimedia sites are not entirely new however Multisemiotic textuality was reg rstevident in newspapers (consider the difference between The New York Times andUSA Today in terms of image text color graphics design and content) and isnow evident in textbooks that are much more visual graphic and multimodal thanthe previously linear and discursive texts of old But it is CD-ROMs web sites andnew multimedia that are the most distinctively multimodal and multisemiotic formsThese sites are the new frontier of learning and literacy the great challenge toeducation for the millennium As we proceed into the 21st century we need totheorize the literacies necessary to interact in these new multimedia environmentsand to gain the skills that will enable individuals to learn work and create inemergent cultural spaces and domains

Cultivating new literacies and reconstructing education for democratization mayalso involve constructing new pedagogies and social relations New multimediatechnologies enable group projects for students and more of a problem-solvingpedagogy aAacute la Dewey and Freire than traditional transmission topplusmn down teachingmodels (1972 and 1998)13 To enable students to access information engage incultural communication and production and to gain the skills necessary to succeedin the new economy and culture require that students cultivate enhanced literaciesabilities to work cooperatively with others and to navigate new cultural and socialterrains Such group activity may generate more egalitarian relations betweenteachers and students and more democratic and cooperative social relations Ofcourse it also requires reconsideration of grading and testing procedures rethinkingthe roles of teacher and student and constructing projects and pedagogies appropri-ate to the new cultural and social environments

Moreover we are soon going to have to rethink SATs and standard tests inrelation to the new technologies having the literacy and skills to successfully accesscommunicate work and create within computer and multimedia culture is quite


different from reading and writing in the mode of print literacy While traditionalskills of reading and writing continue to be of utmost importance in cyberculturethey are sublated within multiliteracy so eventually an entirely different sort of testis going to need to be devised to register individualsrsquo multiliteracy competencies andto predict success in a new technological and educational environment In this newenvironment it becomes increasingly irrational to focus education on producinghigher test scores on exams that themselves are becoming obsolete and outdated bythe changes in the economy society and culture14

Critical pedagogies of the future must also confront the problem of on-lineeducation of how the new cultural terrain of cyberspace produces new sites ofinformation education and culture as well as novel on-line forms of interactionbetween students and teacher In addition possibilities of students developing theirown spaces cultural forms and modes of interaction and communication should bepromoted The challenge will also arise of how to balance classroom instruction withon-line instruction as well as sorting out the strengths and limitations of print versuson-line multimedia material15 Indeed the new technologies and cultural spacesrequire us to rethink education in its entirety ranging from the role of the teacherteacherplusmn student relations classroom instruction grading and testing the value andlimitations of books multimedia and other teaching material and the goals ofeducation itself

On-line education and virtual learning also confronts us with novel problems suchas copyright and ownership of educational materials collaborations between com-puter programmers artists and designers and teachers and students in the construc-tion of teaching material and sites and the respective role of federal and localgovernment the community corporations and private organizations in reg nancingeducation and providing the skills and tools necessary for a new world economy andglobal culture Furthermore the technological revolution of our time forces arethinking of philosophical problems of knowledge truth identity and reality invirtual environments Hence both philosophy and philosophy of education most bereconstructed to meet the challenges of democracy and a new high tech economy

The technological revolution thus forces us to radically rethink and reconstructeducation The terrain and goals of education must be reconsidered and theconception of literacy expanded Questions of the digital divide must be confrontedand the ways that education can promote democratization and social justice shouldbe discussed and developed While there are certainly dangers that the technologicalrevolution will increase divisions between haves and have nots it is possible that oldgender race and class divisions can be overcome in a society that rewards newliteracies and provides opportunities for those who have developed competencies inthe new technologies and culture In this context it is especially important thatappropriate resources training and pedagogies be cultivated to help those groupsand communities who were disadvantaged and marginalized during the past epochof industrialization and modernity

Moreover individuals should be given the capacities to understand critique andtransform the social and cultural conditions in which they live gaining capacities tobe creative and transformative subjects and not just objects of domination and

258 D Kellner

manipulation This requires developing abilities for critical thinking remacr ection andthe ability to engage in discourse cultural creation and political action and move-ments Active and engaged subjects are produced in social interaction with othersas well as with tools and techniques so social skills and individual capacities forcommunication creativity and action must be part of the multiple literacies that aradical reconstruction of education seeks and cultivates

Crucially multiliteracies and new pedagogies must become remacr ective and criticalaware of the educational social and political assumptions involved in the restructur-ing of education and society that we are now undergoing In response to theexcessive hype concerning new technologies and education it is necessary tomaintain the critical dimension and to remacr ect upon the nature and effects of newtechnologies and the pedagogies developed as a response to their challenge Manyadvocates of new technologies however eschew critique for a purely afreg rmativeagenda For instance after an excellent discussion of new modes of literacy and theneed to rethink education Gunther Kress (1997) argues that we must move fromcritique to design beyond a negative deconstruction to more positive constructionBut rather than following such modern logic of eitheror we need to pursue the logicof bothand perceiving design and critique deconstruction and reconstruction ascomplementary and supplementary rather than as antithetical choices Certainly weneed to design new technologies pedagogies and curricula for the future andshould attempt to design new social and pedagogical relations as well but we needto criticize misuse inappropriate use overinmacr ated claims and exclusions andoppressions involved in the introduction of new technologies into education Thecritical dimension is needed more than ever as we attempt to develop improvedteaching strategies and pedagogy and design new technologies and curricula In thisprocess we must be constantly critical practicing critique and self-criticism puttingin question our assumptions discourses and practices as we experimentally de-velop novel and alternative literacies and pedagogy

In all educational and other experiments critique is indeed of fundamentalimportance From the Deweyean perspective progressive education involves trialand error design and criticism The experimental method itself comprises critiqueof limitations failures and macr awed design In discussing new technologies andmultiple literacies one also needs to constantly raise the question whose interestsare these new technologies and pedagogies serving are they serving all social groupsand individuals who is being excluded and why We also need to raise the questionboth of the extent to which new technologies and literacies are preparing studentsand citizens for the present and future and producing conditions for a more vibrantdemocratic society or simply reproducing existing inequalities and inequity

Finally cultivating multiple literacies must be contextual engaging the life-worldof the students and teachers participating in the new adventures of educationLearning involves developing abilities to interact intelligently with onersquo s environ-ment and fellow humans and requires dynamic social and conversational environ-ments Education requires doing and can be gained from practice and socialinteraction One can obviously spend too much time with technologies and fail todevelop basic social skills and competencies As Rousseau Wollstonecraft and


Dewey argued education involves developing proreg ciencies that enable individuals tosuccessfully develop within their concrete environments to learn from practice andto be able to interact work and create in their own societies and cultures Incontemporary US culture for instance multiple literacies require multiculturalliteracies being able to understand and work with a heterogeneity of cultural groupsand forms cultivating literacies in a multiplicity of media and gaining the compe-tencies to participate in a democratic culture and society (see Courts 1998 andWeil 1998)

Moreover as Freire (1972 1998) reminds us critical pedagogy comprises theskills of both reading the word and reading the world Hence multiple literaciesinclude not only media and computer literacies but a diverse range of social andcultural literacies ranging from ecoliteracy (eg understanding the body and en-vironment) to economic and reg nancial literacy to a variety of other competenciesthat enable us to live well in our social worlds Education at its best provides thesymbolic and cultural capital that empowers people to survive and prosper in anincreasingly complex and changing world and the resources to produce a morecooperative democratic egalitarian and just society Thus with Plato RousseauWollstonecraft Dewey Freire and others I see philosophy of education as remacr ectingon the good life and the good society and the ways that education can contribute tocreating a better world But as the world changes so too must education which willbe part of the problem or part of the solution as we enter a new millennium

The project of transforming education will take different forms in differentcontexts In the overdeveloped countries individuals must be empowered to workand act in a high tech information economy and thus must learn skills of media andcomputer literacy in order to survive in the new social environment Traditionalskills of knowledge and critique must also be fostered so that students can name thesystem describe and grasp the changes occurring and the dereg ning features of thenew global order and can learn to engage in critical and oppositional practice in theinterests of democratization and progressive transformation This requires gainingvision of how life can be of alternatives to the present order and of the necessity ofstruggle and organization to realize progressive goals Languages of knowledge andcritique must thus be supplemented by the discourse of hope and praxis

In much of the world the struggle for daily existence is paramount and meetingunmet human and social needs is a high priority Yet everywhere education canprovide the competencies and skills to improve onersquo s life to create a better societyand a more civilized and developed world Moreover as the entire world becomespart of a global and networked society gaining the multiple literacies discussed inthis paper becomes important everywhere as media and cyberculture become moreubiquitous and the world economy requires ever more sophisticated technical skills

This is a time of challenge and a time for experiment It is time to put existingpedagogies practices and educational philosophies in question and to constructnew ones It is a time for new pedagogical experiments to see what works and whatdoesnrsquo t work in the new millennium It is a time to remacr ect on our goals and todiscern what we want to achieve with education and how we can achieve itIronically it is a time to return to classical philosophy of education which situates

260 D Kellner

remacr ections on education in remacr ections on the good life and society at the same timethat we remacr ect on how we can transform education to become relevant to a high techsociety It is time to return to John Dewey to rethink that intimate connectionbetween education and democracy at the same time we address the multiculturalchallenges that Dewey in the midst of a still vital melting pot ideology and liberalprogressivist optimism did not address

Most saliently it is time to take up the Deweyean attitude of pragmatic exper-imentation to see what it is that the new technologies can and cannot do in order tosee how they can enhance education But we should also resist the hype maintaina critical attitude and pedagogy and continue to combine print literacy and classicalmaterials with new literacies and materials It is a mistake to advance an eitherorlogic of print literacy versus computer literacy or to privilege books over newtechnologies for both can enhance education and life and require different literaciesIn the current turbulent situation of the global restructuring of capitalism andworldwide struggles for democratization I believe that we have for the reg rst time indecades a chance to reconstruct education and society In this conjuncture technol-ogy is a revolutionizing force whereby all political parties and candidates paylipservice to education to overcoming the digital divide and to expanding literacy16Hence the time is ripe to take up the challenge and to move to reconstructeducation and society so that groups and individuals excluded from the benereg ts ofthe economy culture and society may more fully participate and receive opportuni-ties not possible in earlier social constellations

Acknowledgements

An earlier and different version of this study appeared in Educational Theory

(Kellner 1998) and I am grateful to its editor Nicholas Burbules for discussion thathelped develop my ideas A later version was published in a Routledge volume onmulticulturalism (Kellner 1999) edited by George Katsiareg cas and Teodros Kirosand I am thankful to the editors for discussions which helped with clarireg cation of myposition on multiculturalism and education Yet another version was presented atUCLA in February 26 1998 at my Kneller Chair Inaugural Lecture and I amgrateful to members of the audience for discussion of the issues that I am engagingFinally the current version was presented at the Philosophy of Education Societyconvention in Toronto on April 1 2000 and I am grateful to this audience forvigorous polemic and to commentator Nicholas Burbules for constructive critiqueand supplementation which helped in the production of this text For ongoingdiscussions of the issues in this paper I am especially grateful to Rhonda Hammerand Allan and Carmen Luke

Notes

1 Studies reveal that women minorities and immigrants now constitute roughly 85 percent ofthe growth in the labor force while these groups represent about 60 percent of all workerssee Duderstadt (1999plusmn 2000) p 38 In the past decade the number of Hispanics in theUnited States increased by 35 percent and Asians by more than 40 percent Since 1991California has had no single ethnic or racial minority and almost half of the high schoolstudents in the state are African-American or Latino Meanwhile a ordf tidal waveordm of childrenof baby boomers are about to enter college see Atkinson (1999plusmn 2000) pp 49plusmn 50 Obviously


I am writing this study from a US perspective but would suggest that my arguments havebroader reference in an increasingly globalized society marked by a networked economyincreasing migration and multiculturalism and a proliferating Internet-based cyberculture

2 There is by now a tremendous amount of books and articles on the new economytechnological revolution new cultural spaces and the implications for every aspect of lifefrom education to war See for example the monumental studies by Castells (1996) (1997)and (1998) and the analyses of the restructuring of capital technological revolution and thepostmodern turn in Best and Kellner forthcoming

3 For materials pertaining to the educational reform proposed by Dewey and Freire and thebroader conceptions of relating education to creation of the good life and good societyadvanced by Plato Rousseau Wollstonecraft and others which inform this paper see myphilosophy of education web site accessible from wwwgseisuclaedufacultykellnerkell-nerhtml See also my Education and Technology web site which contains materials pertinentto this study

4 The ordf digital divideordm has emerged as the buzzword for perceived divisions between infor-mation technology have and have nots in the current economy and society A US Depart-ment of Commerce report released in July 1999 claimed that digital divide in relation to raceis dramatically escalating and the Clinton administration and media picked up on this theme(See the report ordf Americans in the Information Age Falling Through the Netordm at httpwwwntiadocgovntiahomedigitaldivide) A critique of the data involved in the reportemerged claiming that it was outdated more recent studies by Stanford University CheskinResearch ACNielson and the Forester Institute claim that education and class are moresignireg cant factors than race in constructing the divide (see httpcyberatlasinternetcombig-picturedemographics for a collection of reports and statistics on the divide) In any case itis clear that there is a division between information technology haves and have nots that thisis a major challenge to developing an egalitarian and democratic society and that some-thing needs to be done about the problem My contribution involves the argument thatempowering the have nots requires the dissemination of new literacies and thus empoweringgroups and individuals previously excluded from economic opportunities and socio-politicalparticipation

5 See the recent PhD dissertations by two of my UCLA students Jennifer Janofsky Rawls(2000) and Roy Zimmermann (2000) See also Bernard Warner ordf Computers for YouthSpreading the Netordm The Standard March 27 (2000) which reports ordf A study conductedrecently by Denver-based Quality Education Data showed school districts across the countryspent $67 billion on technology in the 1998plusmn 1999 school year up almost 25 percent fromthe previous year But the same study revealed that an equally crucial funding componentETHcomputer training for teachersETH was startlingly low rising just 52 percent over the sameperiodordm In June 2000 however President Bill Clinton argued for increased funding forteaching training to use new technologies so it appears that there is growing recognition of theproblem

6 On the need for a critical theory of technology to overcome technophobia and technophiliasee Kellner (1999) and Best and Kellner forthcoming For arguments on the need toreconstruct technology to meet the needs of democratization see Feenberg (1991) (1995)and (1999)

7 I am occasionally attacked for ordf optimismordm when I make proposals advocating the use ofmedia and information technologies for democratization and social reconstruction I wouldargue however that we need to go beyond the dichotomies of optimism and pessimism thata gloomy pessimism gets us nowhere that while there are plenty of troubling phenomena tocriticize Gramscirsquo s ordf pessimism of the intellect optimism of the willordm is the most productiveway to engage the problems and dangers of the contemporary era rather than pessimisticordf critiqueordm that is devoid of positive proposals for reconstruction and change I am thus awarethat there are serious challenges to democracy and causes for grave concern in regard to thedevelopment of the global economy and technological revolution but in this study I am

262 D Kellner

concentrating on a positive reconstructive agenda For more critical concerns regarding theseissues see Best and Kellner forthcoming

8 The New London Group has produced the concept of ordf multiliteracyordm to describe the typesof literacy required to engage new multimedia technology while Semali and Watts Pailliotetand their collaborators (1999) propose the concept ordf Intermedialityordm to call attention to theneed to generate literacies that allow interaction between various media and new multimediaand that promote interdisciplinary and interactive education in an attempt to create educationthat facilitates democratic social change I develop a concept of multiple literacies in the pagesthat follow

9 For an earlier and expanded discussion of media literacy see Kellner (1998) Carson andFriedman (1995) contains studies dealing with the use of media to deal with multiculturaleducation Examples of teaching media literacy which I draw on include Masterman (1985)Kellner and Ryan (1988) Schwoch White and Reilly (1992) Fleming (1993) Giroux(1992) (1993) (1994) and (1996) Giroux and McLaren (1994) Sholle and Densky(1994) McLaren Hammer Sholle and Reilly (1995) Kellner (1995a) and (1995b) Luke(1996) (1997a) and (1997b) Giroux and Shannon (1997) and Semali and Watts Pailliotet(1999) See also the work of Barry Duncan and the Canadian Association for Media Literacy(website httpwwwnaldcaprovincequelitcentmediahtm) and the Los Angeles basedCenter for Media Literacy (wwwmedialitorg) It is a scandal that there are not more effortsto promote media literacy throughout the school system from K-12 and into the UniversityPerhaps the ubiquity of computer and multimedia culture will awaken educators and citizensto the importance of developing media literacy to create individuals empowered to intelli-gently access read interpret and criticize contemporary media and cyberculture

10 On multicultural literacy see Courts (1997) and Weil (1998)11 Yet some early advocates of hypertext attacked the emergence of the World Wide Web as a

debased medium which brought back into play the reg eld of earlier media like televisionforcing the word to renegotiate its power against the image and spectacles of sight and soundonce again decentering the written word (see for instance Joyce 1997 and the discussion inLandow 1992 and 1997) As the Internet becomes a multimedia hypertext however it isclear that contemporary education must teach reading hypertext as a basic skill and mode ofliteracy

12 For other recent conceptions of multimedia literacy that I draw upon here see the discussionsof literacies needed for reading hypertext in Burbules and Callister (1996) and (2000) theconcept of multiliteracy in the New London Group (1996) and Luke (1997) and the papersin Snyder (1997) and Semali and Watts Pailliotet (1999)

13 Since some people associated with critical pedagogy are technophobes it is interesting thatFreire was positive toward media and new technologies seeing technologies as potential toolsfor empowering citizens as well as instruments of domination in the hands of ruling elitesFreire wrote that ordf Technical and scientireg c training need not be inimical to humanisticeducation as long as science and technology in the revolutionary society are at the service ofpermanent liberation of humanizationordm (1972 p 157) Freire also stated that ordf It is not themedia themselves which I criticize but the way they are usedordm (1972 p 136) Moreover heargued for the importance of teaching media literacy to empower individuals against manipu-lation and oppression and using the most appropriate media to help teach the subject matterin question (pp 114plusmn 116)

14 On the centrality of preparation for exams in contemporary education and the role ofstandardized tests in the US educational and social system see Lemann (1999) While Ihave not myself researched the policy literature on this issue in the many discussions of SATtests and their biases which I have read I have not encountered critiques that indicate theobsolescence of many standardized tests in a new technological environment and the need tocome up with new testing procedures based on the new cultural and social reg elds that we areincreasingly immersed in I would predict that proposals for devising such tests will emergeand that this issue will be hotly debated and contested in the future

15 For sensible critiques on on-line education see Feenberg (1999)


16 Openings for addressing the problems of the digital divide are wide-spread See the articleson efforts by the UN US governmental agencies the G-8 countries corporations andlocal groups to address the challenge in the April 3 2000 yahoocom web site they includean April 3 2000 Reuters report that the UN ordf sets ambitious goals for the new millenniumto overcome the digital divide an April 2 AFP report that ordf G8 powers vow to bridge the`digital divideordm rsquo a March 29 AP report that ordf Lawmakers Mull Rural Web Servicesordm a March28 BBC report on Britainrsquos digital divide and efforts to overcome it an Industry StandardMarch 27 report on local efforts to provide computer access to minority youth and a March24 BBC report that ordf Clinton warns of cyber divideordm (httpfullcoverageyahoocomFull-CoverageTechDigital-Divide) I am arguing however that without promotion of a broaderconception of computer and multimedia literacy) efforts to address the divide will be limitedand macr awed and that educators and citizens of the future will either be part of the solution inworking to solve the intractable problems of social justice by helping to empower groups andindividuals on the have not side of the divide or part of the problem in continuing businessas usual while divides between the have and the have-nots perhaps widen and intensify Formy remacr ections on how new technologies are being used by new social movements to promoteprogressive social change see Kellner (1999) and (2000)

References

ATKINSON RC (1999plusmn 2000) The future arrives reg rst in California Issues in Science and Technol-

ogy (Winter) 43plusmn 51BEST S amp KELLNER D (forthcoming) The postmodern adventure New York Guilford PressBURBULES NC amp CALLISTER T (1996) Knowledge at the crossroads Some alternative futures

of hypertext learning environments Educational Theory 46(1) 23plusmn 50BURBULES NC amp CALLISTER T (2000) Watch IT The risks and promises of information

technology Boulder CO Westview PressCARSON D amp FRIEDMAN LD (1995) Shared differences Multicultural media amp practical pedagogy

Urbana and Chicago IL University of Illinois PressCASTELLS M (1996) The rise of the network society Oxford BlackwellCASTELLS M (1997) The power of identity The information ageETH economy society and culture

Oxford BlackwellCASTELLS M (1998) End of millennium Oxford BlackwellCOURTS PL (1998) Multicultural literacies Dialect discourses and diversity New York Peter

LangDEWEY J (1997 [1916]) Democracy and education New York Free PressDUDERSTADT JJ (1999plusmn 2000) New roles for the 21st century university Issues in Science and

Technology (Winter) 37plusmn 44FEENBERG A (1991) Critical theory of technology New York Oxford University PressFEENBERG A (1995) Alternative modernity Berkeley CA University of California PressFEENBERG A (1999) Questioning technology New York and London RoutledgeFLEMING D (1993) Media teaching Oxford Basil BlackwellFREIRE P (1972) Pedagogy of the oppressed New York Herder and HerderFREIRE P (1999) A Paulo Freire reader New York Herder and HerderGIROUX H (1992) Border crossing New York RoutledgeGIROUX H (1993) Living dangerously Multiculturalism and the politics of difference New York

Peter LangGIROUX H (1994) Disturbing pleasures New York RoutledgeGIROUX H (1996) Fugitive cultures Race violence and youth New York RoutledgeGIROUX H amp MCLAREN P (Eds) (1994) Between borders pedagogy and the politics of cultural

studies New York Routledge

264 D Kellner

GIROUX H amp SHANNON P (1997) Education and cultural studies London and New YorkRoutledge

JOYCE M (1995) Of two minds Hypertext pedagogy and poetics Ann Arbor MI University ofMichigan Press

KELLNER D (1990) Television and the crisis of democracy Boulder CO Westview PressKELLNER D (1995a) Media culture London and New York RoutledgeKELLNER D (1995b) Cultural studies multiculturalism and media culture In G DINES amp J

HUMEZ (Eds) Gender race and class in media (pp 5plusmn 17) Thousand Oaks CA andLondon Sage

KELLNER D (1998) Multiple literacies and critical pedagogy in a multicultural society Educa-

tional Theory 48(1) 103plusmn 122KELLNER D (1999) New technologies the welfare state and the prospects for democratization

In A CALABRESE amp J-C BURGELMAN (Eds) Communication citizenship and social policy

(pp 239plusmn 256) Lanham Rowman and Littlereg eldKELLNER D (2000) Globalization and new social movements Lessons for critical theory and

pedagogy In N BURBULES amp C TORRES (Eds) Globalization and education New YorkRoutledge

KELLNER D amp RYAN M (1988) Camera politica The politics and ideology of contemporary

Hollywood reg lm Bloomington IN Indiana University PressKRESS G (1997) Before writing Rethinking the paths to literacy London and New York

RoutledgeLANDOW GP (1992) Hypertext The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology

Baltimore MD The Johns Hopkins University PressLANDOW GP (1997) Hypertext 20 being a revised expanded edition of Hypertext The convergence

of contemporary critical theory and technology Baltimore MD The Johns Hopkins UniversityPress

LEMANN N (1999) The big test The secret history of the American meritocracy New York FarrarStraus amp Giroux

LEWIS J (1996) Practice what you preach Afterimage (Summer 1996) 25plusmn 26LUKE C (1996) Reading gender and culture in media discourses and texts In G BULL amp M

ANSTEY (Eds) The literacy lexicon New York and Sydney Prentice-HallLUKE C (1997a) Technological literacy Melbourne National Languages amp Literacy Institute

Adult Literacy NetworkLUKE C (1997b) Media literacy and cultural studies In S MUSPRATT A LUKE amp P FREEBODY

(Eds) Constructing critical literacies (pp 19plusmn 50) Cresskill NY Hampton PressMASTERMAN L (1989 [1985]) Teaching the media London and New York RoutledgeMCLAREN P HAMMER R SHOLLE D amp REILLY S (1995) Rethinking media literacy A critical

pedagogy of representation New York Peter LangMCLUHAN M (1962) The Gutenberg galaxy New York Signet BooksMCLUHAN M (1964) Understanding media The extensions of man New York Signet BooksONG W (1988) Orality and literacy The technologizing of the word London and New York

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relationship between teachers and the technology movement at their school PhD DissertationUCLA

SEMALI L amp WATTS PAILLIOTET A (1999) Intermediality Boulder CO WestviewSCHWOCH J WHITE M amp REILLY S (1992) Media knowledge Albany NY State University of

New York PressSHOLLE D amp DENSKI S (1994) Media education and the (re)production of culture Westport CT

Bergin amp Garvey


SNYDER I (1996) Hypertext The electronic labyrinth Melbourne Melbourne University PressSNYDER I (Ed) (1997) Page to screen Taking literacy into the electronic era New South Wales

Allen and UnwinWEBSTER F (1995) Theories of the information society London and New York RoutledgeWEIL DK (1998) Toward a critical multicultural literacy New York Peter LangZIMMERMAN R (2000) The intersection of technology and teachers challenges and problems PhD

Dissertation UCLA

246 D Kellner

of providing people from diverse races classes and backgrounds with the tools andcompetencies to enable them to succeed and participate in an ever more complexand changing world1 In this paper I argue that we need multiple literacies for ourmulticultural society that we need to develop new literacies to meet the challengeof the new technologies and that literacies of diverse sortsETH including a morefundamental importance for print literacyETH are of crucial importance in restructur-ing education for a high tech and multicultural society and global culture Myargument is that in a period of dramatic technological and social change educationneeds to cultivate a variety of new types of literacies to make education relevant tothe demands of a new millennium My assumptions are that new technologies arealtering every aspect of our society and culture and that we need to comprehendand make use of them both to understand and transform our worlds My goal wouldbe to introduce new literacies to empower individuals and groups traditionallyexcluded and thus to reconstruct education to make it more responsive to thechallenges of a democratic and multicultural society

Technology and the Restructuring of Education

To dramatize the issues at stake we should seriously consider the claim that we arenow undergoing one of the most signireg cant technological revolutions for educationsince the transition from oral to print and book based teaching2 Just as the progressto print literacy and book culture involved a dramatic transformation of educationas Marshall McLuhan (1961 1964) Walter Ong (1988) and others have argued sotoo does the current technological revolution require a major restructuring ofeducation today with new curricula pedagogy literacies practices and goalsFurthermore I want to argue that the technological revolution of the present eramakes possible the radical reconstruction and restructuring of education and societyargued for in the progressive era by Dewey and in the 1960s and 1970s by IvanIllich Paolo Freire and others who sought radical educational and social reform3Put in historical perspective it is now possible to see modern education as prep-aration for industrial civilization and minimal citizenship in a passive representativedemocracy The demands of the new global economy culture and polity require amore informed participatory and active citizenship and thus increased roles andchallenges for education Modern education in short emphasizes submission toauthority rote memorization and what Freire called the ordf banking conceptordm ofeducation in which learned teachers deposit knowledge into passive studentsinculcating conformity subordination and normalization These traits are becomingobsolete in a global postindustrial and networked society with its demands for newskills for the workplace participation in new social and political environs andinteraction within forms of culture and everyday life

In short I wish to argue that the technological revolution renders necessary thesort of thorough restructuring of education that radicals demanded during the lastcentury indeed back to the Enlightenment if one includes Rousseau and Wollstone-craft who saw the restructuring of education as the key to democracy Todayhowever intense pressures for change now come directly from technology and the







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new technologies/new literacies: reconstructing education...

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