Week 2 - Lankshear and Knobel, Lister et. al., and Street because I have an opinion dying to get out.

Street, Brian. "The New Literacy Studies."
Street's article explains the history and development of the fields of Literacy Studies and New Media Literacies. The field emerged out of a desire to revision the traditional emphasis on "language arts," or more specifically, reading and writing, in a way that could account for differing cultural practices as well as better account for the social meanings of reading and writing. Two models emerged out of this new emphasis on "literacy."

• The autonomous model, which more closely resembles its "language arts" predecessor in that it focuses on the transformation of spoken language into written text (bridging the "divide" between orality and literacy that Street cites as a fault of the language arts model), which is seen as fundamentally different from the spoken word and generally "indifferent to attack" (Ong). The original format (book, website, etc.) of a published text cannot be altered except by its creator releasing a new edition; thus, the text is viewed as autonomous rather than in dialogue with other texts or forms of communication.
• The ideological model, which emphasizes the relationship between literacy and power structures. This model emphasizes discourse analysis, the study of communications in societal context, rather than traditional linguistic models of analyzing conversations at an isolated level (sentence, word, or even morpheme level).

This comparison between the linguistic and cultural anthropological approaches was the facet of Street's article that I was most interested in. Having begun my Stanford career as a linguistics major (sociolinguistics focus), I completely agree with the ideological literacy model's contention that context is critical to understanding literacy. Literacy represents a form of cultural citizenship, having access to and being able to participate in societal discourses. The linguistic focus on isolated speech events can be insightful when combined with ethnographic information on the context of the speech event, but otherwise is so specific to the speaker/writer that it cannot be extrapolated to understanding and ultimately shaping social structures (which I believe to be a critical aim of the social sciences). The example Street provides of the control of written language by elites in Sierra Leone clearly illustrates the importance of relating any study of language use to broader sociocultural trends/events; studying these writings without applying knowledge of their social purpose would produce information that would have little use outside the specific group of elites responsible for its production.
Street's critique of the sociolinguistic method of studying language use and literacy addresses all the reasons that I ultimately chose to major in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity rather than Linguistics; to me, the anthropological approach (which the majority of CSRE-related classes employ) seems much more suited to producing research that could remain relevant over time and potentially effect social change.

Lankshear and Knobel, "From 'Reading' to 'The New Literacy Studies'"
Lankshear and Knobel, like Street, also explore the development of "Literacy Studies" from the traditional emphasis on "reading and writing." They postulate reasons for the birth of this new field:

• Paulo Freire's emphasis on educating people to develop a critical consciousness about the societies in which they live and their relationship to their society. Freire used reading and writing as tools for reflection as well as communication, developing a model of "popular education" that differed from the traditional emphasis on consuming "culturally important" (as defined by elites within academia) texts.
• The "literacy crisis" in Anglophone nations. As the concept of "literacy" began to evolve beyond the abilities to read and write, concern that many citizens (especially in the U.S.) lacked a vaguely-defined body of essential cultural knowledge prompted the development of literacy programs, many of which were aimed at adults.

I was particularly interested in the idea of the American "literary crisis." I believe it is necessarily connected to the emergence of the idea of "cultural literacy." One of my high school English teachers recommended that all her students purchase E.D. Hirsch's Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, which Lankshear and Knobel mention. The Dictionary prompted my interest in epistemology -- where does our knowledge come from? Who determines what is important? Who is this knowledge designed to serve? While certainly encompassing an impressive body of historical, literary, and scientific information, the Dictionary clearly privileges Western cultural products :the Bible and Western mythology each have their own section, whereas "World Literature, Philosophy, and Religion" are all combined in one section; it also excludes information about both popular and alternative cultural products in favor of "fine art." While I understand that every work has its failings, the idea that one book can purport to be "What Every American Needs to Know" (the Dictionary's subtitle) must be examined critically.

Lister, et. al. New Media: A Critical Introduction pp. 9-37.
Lister examines the various aspects of what types of communications or technologies qualify as "new media." He identifies the following characteristics of new media:

• Digitality: new media can be represented numerically and manipulated algorithmically. Thus, new media tends to be more quickly accessible and more easily edited than its predecessors, which Lister deems "analogue media." An example of this characteristic is Wikipedia, which can be edited an infinite number of times and quickly, unlike a printed encyclopedia.
• Interactivity: users of new media can "directly intervene" in media that they access (20). There are "extractive" methods of interaction, in which the reader forms a text that is useful to them by choosing readings that are linked in any kind of database, as well as "immersive" methods of interaction, which includes a visual/sensory environment for the user to explore.
• The simple act of a user registering on, for example, a message board or newsgroup and adding their own opinions and information is also an example of interactivity. Thus, this blog exemplifies interactivity, as well!
• Hypertexuality: there are pathways leading to and from new media texts to other texts. For example, a hyperlink leading from one webpage to another represents a pathway from one text to another. Hypertextual organization allows users quick access to varied information.
• Dispersal: new media, in contrast to its predecessors, is decentralized, which has created a more individuated method of consumption, as well as allowing more people to produce and distribute media.

I was most interested in the case study that Lister presents on problems of authorship and ownership with digitization. I am particularly thinking about who can claim to own various materials that have wide circulation on the internet, such as Wikipedia articles (which are supposed to be open to editing by the public, but can be "locked" by administrators), anonymously posted poetry, or even popular image macros (such as the pictures of cats with funny captions). Are these texts collective knowledge and information, or can they be traced to a particular author and thus subjected to copyright? What would a truly collective knowledge look like? I'm perpetually interested in the idea of collaborative/collective products and ideas, so I'll likely be revisiting that idea as I learn more about new media.