What is 'literacy'? This week, I read an article called "Defining Digital Literacy" by David Buckingham. I was sure that, with such a relevant title, I would get an answer to my question. Instead, I still find myself unsure of the answer to this question, about which my mind has been unsettled since we began talking about the concept in class last week. So, rather than give up, in what follows I will talk through Buckingham a little and try to put my finger on what sort of definition might come out of this article.
Buckingham talks a lot about what literacy is not. It is not simply "a vague synonym for 'competence', or even 'skill'" (Buckingham, p. 2), nor is it "restricted to mechanical skills or narrow forms of functional competence" (p. 3). This is a repetitive theme throughout the article, that literacy is about more than sufficient abilities a person has with respect to information. But what is included in this "more than"? According to Buckingham, the way 'economic literacy', 'emotional literacy' and 'spiritual literacy' are often conceptualized discount them as literacies, as far as he is concerned (p. 2). But why? In philosophical terms, we need some necessary and sufficient conditions of 'literacy'; in layman's terms, we need to know all the properties that make literacy literacy.
Using Buckingham, here's my best crack at a definition of 'literacy' at this point:
Literacy is the possession of a set of skills which allow an individual to navigate through, critically evaluate, and gain knowledge from some means of communication.
Thus, the literate individual is in the possession of a skills set. This skills set includes, but (according to Buckingham's constant prescription) is not limited to, the functional or instrumental ability to use some means of communication. I have made explicit two things that Buckingham implies must be added to instrumental skill in a good definition of 'literacy': (1) the ability to evaluate some medium of communication, which means being able to analyze the representation, language, production, and audience of some content of that medium (pp. 5-10), and (2) the ability to internalize informational content, thereby transforming it into knowledge (p. 5). Finally, I think economic, emotional and spiritual 'literacies' all fail to meet one of the three criteria - navigation, evaluation, and knowledge-gaining - outlined in the definition.
I'm glad for this experience of making an attempt to define 'literacy'. I still don't feel entirely confident that I'm understanding the whole idea of literacy, but I get it more now than I did yesterday. Hopefully, I'll be able to say the same after class on Wednesday, when I hear from others about what they read!
David Koch
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Having read the David Buckingham article on literacy as well I found myself in the same predicament; how, especially after trying to interpret Buckingham's thoughts, am I supposed to come up with a definition of what literacy is? Like you, I too thought that Buckingham gave an extensive attempt at defining what exactly literacy is not, but I felt that he failed to provide an actual definition. This left me with a few questions and left me in a position of confusion.
ReplyDeleteI do like the definition that you gathered based on your beliefs and understanding of what literacy is. I find it hard to settle on one specific explanation, but I do feel that your attempt is one that works very well.
I guess that Buckingham's essay really narrowed down what he thought that literacy was and made many of the different forms of literacy that we are learning about seem irrelevant and "not literacy". I found my self asking what characteristics contribute to something that can be defined as literacy; what makes learning one thing different than learning another? I guess a lot of this has to do with your own beliefs and how you believe someone can become "literate" in regards to a certain realm of understanding and/or method of obtaining knowledge.
No worries David, I too find myself somewhat lost in this whole literacy mess and am hoping that in the next couple of weeks this confusion is cleared up.