Internet Literacy

Ted Naylor and Charlene Croft, with E. Dianne Looker
from May 2007

While issues of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure remain essential, it is also paramount that on top of connectivity we recognize that inclusive access does not end at being ‘connected’. Rather, inclusion and participation in the knowledge society is tied to social processes that are dynamic and complex and which vary across different socio-economic contexts.

To this end, we introduce and discuss the notion of ICT literacy. This concept provides an analytical approach that makes visible that there are important differences in use, skill levels and objectives in using ICTs throughout the social order, particularly across the key socio-economic sectors of governance, business, education and community. ICT literacy therefore provides the analytical link to understanding how to navigate and use the information highway in ways that cuts experiences of users in different ways; people form literacies with meaning that are socially and culturally mediated. An equitable knowledge society is indeed a connected one, yet is also one based on acknowledging that a plurality of ICT literacies exist; there are not ‘dumb’ users of technology and ‘smart’ users of technology when considering how individuals employ ICTs in ways that matter to their lives, circumstances and needs.

From a policy and practice perspective, we believe this approach helpfully moves us away from the prevailing tendency to understand ICT literacy as a singular, hierarchy ranked, uniform set of competencies with computers or technologies that can be measured, standardized and taught.

The Knowledge Economy

It is now generally acknowledged that Canada, similar to other advanced social democracies, is becoming a knowledge based economy. This shift is premised on the accentuation of “knowledge” as the most important factor of production, surpassing land, labour, and capital based on the diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) throughout the social order (Parayil 2005).

From a federal policy and programme perspective, Canada has aggressively positioned itself as a leading proponent of the knowledge economy, making massive investments in infrastructure and programs based on the understanding that “Canada needs a highly skilled and educated workforce to remain competitive and sustain its prosperity in an increasingly global and knowledge-based economy” (Berger et al. 2007).

The Knowledge Society

While there has been a great deal of focus on creating an advantageous climate for growing the knowledge economy, considerably less focus has been put into considering how we might ensure the development of an equitable knowledge society. In broad terms, a knowledge society centre’s around the social capabilities to identify, process, transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development (UNESCO).

However, while issues of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure remain essential, it is also paramount that on top of connectivity we recognize that inclusive access does not end at being ‘connected’. Rather, inclusion and participation in the knowledge society is tied to social processes that are dynamic and complex and which vary across different socio-economic contexts.

Indeed, scholars of the ‘digital divide’ now point out that this divide cannot be reduced to just technological access, “solved” through “simple technological fixes” (Parayil 2005) because connectivity and access to infrastructures are not a sufficient basis to develop a knowledge society based on equitable inclusion and participation (UNESCO).

In both cases, the concept of the knowledge society and economy hinges on access to computing infrastructures – while government policy and programme has begun to successfully conquer the ‘digital divide’ in terms of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure it has not yet sufficiently addressed the digital divide in terms of ensuring adequate levels of literacy with ICTs.

ICT literacy addresses the post-connectivity question of, what now? For those with access to the ubiquitous information highway, ICT literacy provides the analytical link to understanding how to navigate and use the information highway in ways that cuts experiences of users in different ways. This approach makes visible that there are important differences in use, skill levels and objectives in using ICTs throughout the social order and that these differences should not, and do not, necessarily follow along a hierarchal ordering of ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ skills within the social realm – there are not ‘dumb’ users of technology and ‘smart’ users of technology when considering how individuals employ ICTs in ways that matter to their lives, circumstances and needs.

ICT literacy

While there are many definitions of ICT literacy within the scholarly literature (see Bawden 2001 for a review), ICT literacy is generally taken as an “umbrella term” that attempts to describe a new set of literacies which have emerged as a result of a broader shift to an “information society” and the accompanying technologies embedded in that shift. As Warschauer (in press: 16) concludes, “Today, the social, economic, and technological transformations are again aligned to bring about major changes in literacy practices.”

Currently, the prevailing tendency in understanding ICT literacy is to understand it as a singular, standardized set of competencies with computers or technologies. In the tradition of traditional literacy, we then find those agents and organizations wishing “to define ‘it’, to teach it, measure it, assess it, and remediate it – in a word, to universalize and standardize it (Lankshear and Knobel 2005).” If you don’t have ‘it’, then you better get ‘it’ because you will need ‘it’ in the future, goes the rationale. Within the education sector, for example, this approach is ensconced within traditional curriculum programs that understand ICT literacy as a teachable and unified set of skills to be learned. However, evidence from our study, among others, suggests that ICT literacy should be more accurately understood across a broad range of competencies and skills, and that individuals use ICTs in ways that matter to them, and not necessarily along a fixed continuum of ‘advancing’ skills.

Our understanding of ICT literacy therefore differs from the normative understandings of ICT literacy by recognizing that there are social and cultural elements which draw our attention to understanding literacy in different ways which vary in different social contexts (Simpson 2005).  Freire (2000) describes literacy as “an active phenomenon, deeply linked to personal and cultural identity. Its power lies not in a received ability to read and write, but rather in an individual’s capacity to put those skills to work in shaping the course of his or her own life.” In this context, ICT literacy conceptualizes a whole host of social practices of how people engage in making meaning “mediated by texts that are produced, received, distributed, exchanged, etc., via digital codification” (Lankshear and Knobel 2005: 9). People form literacies with meaning that are socially and culturally mediated, which is not the result from some universally learned skill or technique.

With this in mind, we would suggest four major socio-economic sectors where ICT literacy matters; it matters in the sense that while literacies with ICTs will inevitably vary among individuals, these sectors continue to form the basis of the knowledge society. Therefore a consideration of literacy with ICTs among these sectors is paramount to ensure equitable inclusion in the knowledge society.

* Governance

It is important to consider ICT literacy in relation to its significance around equitable participation within the public domain. The existence of asymmetries in democratic and governing practices in Canada is now well established. In this context, ICTs are increasingly playing an important role in inclusion around policy formulation and decision-making processes (Dale and Naylor 2006). Civic engagement processes are increasingly found on-line, and the communication possibilities created by ICTs allow the public to express itself more immediately and effectively than previously possible, helping citizens reinvigorate public talk and dialogue in entirely new ways, and with entirely new results (Dale and Naylor 2006).

Aside from ICTs contribution to civic engagement, ICTs are also now crucial to evolving notions of alternative service delivery mechanisms within government. In efforts to become more efficient and effective, many government services are now found online (http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr). The rationale is that the public can be better served by making these services available online, circumventing the traditional bureaucratic ‘silos and stovepipes’ found across departments, and offering more immediate and better services to citizens.

* Business

Simply connecting business to the Internet isn’t sufficient for ensuring effective use of the advantages offered by ICTs. In a study of rural New Zealand small businesses, the authors recommend that human capability play the key role in their E-Commerce strategy as a priority for the Government in the drive for economic transformation. To this end, among a host of recommendations, the authors direct the government to facilitate skill training for small business by ensuring the education sector focuses on ICT literacy, and that the government helps the private sector “build broader ICT literacy and capability in the community including rural areas” (Al-Qirim and Corbett 2003). In this way, ICT literacy becomes positioned as the key competitive edge for businesses once they have gained connectivity – the better literacy skills with ICTs on behalf of businesses and owners, the more competitive they become within a global marketplace where ICT literacy is presumed to be the entry fee to compete.

* Education

Canada requires a highly skilled and educated workforce to ensure it is competitive and to sustain its long-term prosperity in a knowledge-based economy (Berger et al. 2007).

At the same time, it is widely believed that students who have difficulty converting written information to knowledge are at a critical disadvantage in today’s world (Sim 2006). ICT literacy is therefore a desirable and necessary form of human capital, particularly in relation to an increasing emphasis on an individual’s success within the context of a knowledge economy.

Within the field of economics, there is also a growing theoretical consensus that the driving force behind economic growth is technological advancement; an assertion which has clearly found its way into educational policy formulation, and curriculum reform and practice for many governments, including Canada. As Milton (2005: 10) contends, “The early drivers of levels of investment in ICT in education have not changed.  ICT skills are a key factor in both individuals’ success in the labour market and in national economic growth.” So while connectivity and access remain important obstacles within education, obstacles to creating literacy with ICTs within the education sector is the key to ensuring all groups have access to tapping the potential created by connectivity within Nova Scotia, particularly those groups that have been historically marginalized (Naylor and Frank, forthcoming).

*   Community

Rural connectivity and literacy with that connectivity represents an important development in the historical use of ICTs to foster and enhance civic participation within the public domain (Dale and Naylor 2006). In this context, the use of the ICTs to expand dialogue, literacy and discourse are taken as new features of a potentially democratic process within the public sphere since to a large extent they seek to involve different groups employing different techniques to achieve different objectives.

Rural communities worldwide are now facing formidable challenges: significant demographic urban growth, with associated problems of economic and population losses in many rural and resource-dependent communities, with associated job loss and community decline; and meeting the basic necessities for clean air, clean water, energy, transportation, land use, housing, jobs, health, waste disposal, etc. Such problems are dynamically interconnected and cannot be dealt with in isolation; they require new approaches, frameworks, partnerships and tools to address them in an integrative fashion (Dale and Onyx, in press). Key to facing these challenges is the capacity of communities to coordinate and lead discussions around these issues, potentially contributing to a rapid development of social capital.

The emergent tools of Web 2.0, for example, suggest the importance of a set of communication tools that rural communities might adopt as strategies that cut across the rural socio-economic experience. It also highlights the critical need to address a plurality of literacies that need to be considered in relation to connectivity.

Internet Web 2.0 applications are “those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated services that gets better the more people use it, creating network effects through an ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly 2005). In this way, Web 2.0 first assumes access to web based infrastructure but from there departs from the current understanding of the internet as a single entry point to access more information or as static communications link. Rather Web 2.0 is centered on a model of knowledge generation and production by communities.

As rural communities continue to face the challenges noted above, they require the tools to mobilize not only their civic voices and participation but their commerce and economies; and without the literacy to embrace and adapt the evolving architecture of the knowledge society and economy they risk becoming marginalized as technology ‘have-not’s’.

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation…

Bread and Circuits:

“The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny – no longer relevant or meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, and in many cases dangerous.” – from Generation X by Douglas Coupland, 1991

It occurred to me that Generation X will be turning 50 soon.  It kind of freaked me out a bit.  Is Generation X and the up-and-coming Net Generation ready to take the reigns or power during these turbulent times and over the next three decades as their Boomer parents retire?

According to demographer and digital theorist Don Tapscott (perhaps one of the most prolific demographers around today), our society is currently trying to balance the values of 4 distinct generational categories: The Boomers (those born between 1946 -1964); Generation X (1965 – 1976); The Net Generation (1977 – 1997) – also called the “me” generation, Generation Y, or the Millenials; and the Next Generation (1998 – 2008).

I have long been a believer in demography as being one of the most valuable social tools we have. Basic demographic data would include the salary you have, the type of neighborhood you live in, your education, your family status, how old you are, and whether or not you have a penis… to name a few.  It has been argued that the most telling, or predicting, demographic characteristic is age (they call them cohorts).  Age cohorts move in waves which are formed by the cultural conditions they are raised in… they are generally educated by the same curriculum, exposed to the same music and television, interfaced with the same technology and driven by the same cultural values.

There is a commonly accepted myth that the Net Generation is politically apathetic.  That those under the age of 30 don’t vote, because they don’t care.  They are too wrapped up in their iPods, cell phones and video games to pay attention.  And that they form a huge chunk of the non-voting block.  In his latest offering Grown up Digital (a sequel to his 2000 book, Growing up Digital), Tapscott proposes that while it is true the Net Generation doesn’t vote… they are actually more civically engaged than generations before.  The difference?  The ways that they are engaging.

Rather than going to the polls, they are going out to volunteer. Instead of casting ballots, they are writing blogs and tweeting at CNN and CBC.  They aren’t in churches listening to sermons, they are on rooftop patios with margaritas discussing the issues of the day with each other.

This generation – my generation – along with the Gen Xers who jumped on the Internet bandwagon and Yippie/Hippie  Boomers who never traded in their bullhorns and flower chains, have different values than the status quo Boomers, because my generation experienced and continues to experience culture differently than them.  It’s not one-way communication… it’s two-way.

Our brains developed differently because they were stimulated differently.  The way we learned was more mediated and interactive than the way the Boomers learned, and the things we were learning were focused around our planet, respect for diversity and individual freedom.

My generation was positively socialized.  We were taught that beauty resides on the inside, that letters and numbers were fun and that inner city living didn’t have to be all about guns and gangs. We were socialized on Sesame Street…

For the most part, my generation understands that the personal is political.  We were the first generation to experience perspective-widening effects of mass advertising with a social conscious through Unicef and Part of Your Heritage Commercials…

My generation has a different sense of humor.  We get a kick out of turning the sacred into the profane and could never quite understand the hub-bub about being politically correct.  We were entertained by the Simpsons…

My generation is far more media savvy than the Boomers.  We seem to have a vague understanding of how hegemonic culture manipulates us, how media distorts, and that things are not always as they seem.  Perhaps this explains our tendencies towards cynicism and distrust of authority. My generation learned all we needed to know about the media from Jon Stewart.

My generation is the steward of the Internet.  We are the gatekeepers of code and the social web.  We navigate the Information Highway with precision and speed, always ready to change lanes quickly, and never minding to take the scenic route to get to the proper exit.  We are the mavens and connectors of our virtual communities, and we are uninhibited to express our opinions and expose ourselves to the world.

My generation is also the generation with the greatest amount of disposable income, ergo our consumer-power has every post-modern adman scouring the Internet for the hippest music and the hippest design.  My generation is not having as many babies, but those of us who are get to revisit our childhoods through the massive recycling of Saturday Morning Cartoon Merchandise.

If it is true, that my generation doesn’t feel the urge to go out and engage with the democratic process, or participate in partisan tomfoolery, it is not because they don’t care – it is because the political system does not embrace their values.  It is because they feel as though the system doesn’t serve them.  It is because they view the system as outdated and inefficient. It is because the disenfranchisement goes way deeper than simply being lazy and apathetic.

This is why President Obama was so popular with young voters… not simply because he whipped them into a frenzy using social media, their media, but also because he promised revolutionary change in the way politics were done.  So far, he’s been true to his word, and his approval rating is holding steady despite the rabble-rousing of choice Boomer republicans who aren’t quite ready to cede power to this culture of “loose morals” and irreverence.

My generation is ready, willing and able to safely land this bird, even if it is on an uninhabited island.  In fact, we’d probably prefer an uninhabited island, so that we could experiment with new forms of democracy and social organization.