Digital Literacy

Abstract

For centuries, both the technologies of literacy—from cuneiform tablets to the printing press to, most recently, the smartphone—as well as the practices of reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing have evolved. In the late 1990s, with the emergence of the hyperlinked and increasingly visual form of the Internet known as the World Wide Web, researchers, journalists, and educators began to use the term “digital literacy” to describe and differentiate emerging practices that were considered new, or at least different, from linear, text-centric literacy practices. To be digitally literate, competent learners would need to perform equally as well in face-to-face and print communication, as well as with emerging online tools such as discussions boards, instant messaging, and email. Along with the introduction of the term “digital literacy,” a number of related—and often considered synonymous—terms have emerged from various perspectives including “computer literacy,” “information communication technologies (ICT) literacy,” “information literacy,” “media literacy,” “new literacy(ies),” and “multiliteracies.” In an effort to clarify definitions and to distinguish between other entries in the Oxford Bibliographies, “digital literacy” is defined here as the complementary and interwoven skills, both technical and social, that people must employ when using Internet-based communication—including hypertext, images, audio, and video—to consume and create messages across a variety of academic, civic, and cultural contexts. Digital literacy, then, has particular significance within the realm of education. Often positioned as a set of skills and dispositions on par with—or in some cases, even more important than—traditional literacy skills of reading and writing, digital literacy has taken a prominent role in academic conversations from early childhood education through adolescent and young adult learning. Additionally, references to digital literacy are now common in conversations outside of school as well. This bibliography focuses attention on digital literacy in K-12 contexts, with reference to out-of-school and global contexts, drawing attention to the wide range of educational scholarship that embraces the study of digital literacy including research in linguistics and sociology as well as education.