Literacies
Defining Literacy
Literacy is a human process of making sense of our world, binding our understanding and relationships to each other and our contexts. Literacy is found in the “relationship between human practices and the production, distribution, exchange, refinement, negotiation and contestation of meaning” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007, p. 2). Within this process, as Lankshear and Knobel (2007) suggest, there is “no practice without meaning, just as there is no meaning outside of practice. Within contexts of human practice, language (words, literacy, texts) gives meaning to contexts and, dialectically, contexts give meaning to language. Hence, there is no reading or writing in any meaningful sense of each term outside of social practice” (p. 2).Stordy (2015) examines literacy/literacies to create a taxonomy that encompasses a multitude of definitions and variations of relevant terms. This taxonomy includes both an autonomous perspective outlining psychological cognitive definitions and an ideological perspective relating to socio-cultural approaches that define literacy/literacies. Stordy (2015) differentiates these into those literacies that integrate no-or-few digital technologies (conventional), those that incorporate new technical elements (peripheral), and those literacies that assimilate new technical stuff with new ‘ethos stuff’ (paradigm), further described in the Taxonomy of Literacies image.
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Stordy (2015) defines digital literacies as the “abilities a person or social group draws upon when interacting with digital technologies to derive or produce meaning, and the social, learning and work-related practices that these abilities are applied to” (p. 472). The taxonomy proposed by Stordy (2015) is grounded in literacy research and provides a working definition of literacies that “captures the complementary nature of literacy as a cognitive ability and a social practice” (p. 472). While Stordy (2015) acknowledges the challenges of and limitations in this framework, and recognizes that the borders between these concepts are fuzzy and permeable, this taxonomy supports the reframing of literacies in a way that clarifies understanding.
Luke (2012) submits that critical literacies “entails a process of naming and renaming the world, seeing its patterns, designs, and complexities, and developing the capacity to redesign and reshape it” (p. 9). From this we can deduce that definitions and practices of critical media and digital literacies (MDL) are continually in flux, since contexts dictate the core and critical elements. In teacher education programs, MDL is shaped by, and adapts to, current cultural, social, political, and technological climates.
Literacy terminology is frequently confused with notions of fluency and competency but these should be regarded as different conceptions. Fluencies is the ability to speak, read, and write in a given language quickly and easily, while competency is defined by having skills and abilities to do a job (Cambridge dictionary, n.d.). These definitions are not the same thing, but can be considered to be subsumed within the broader term ‘literacy’. This clarification is made here since some research for this review apply these terms interchangeably.