Metaliteracy in beta: A personal view from

the SouthBy Dr Paul Prinsloo

Directorate: Curriculum and Learning DevelopmentUniversity of South Africa (Unisa)

Twitter profile: @14prinsp

Metaliteracy in beta – the storyline…

Clarifying my own position

Quick recap of metaliteracy

In order to read the word, I need to read the world

Making sense of some of the discourses of the 21st century world

In order to be literate in a networked and (un)flat world I need to know…

Metaliteracy in beta – a proposal

(In)conclusions

Disclaimer• I don’t claim to present a global view, not even a “view from

the South, ” or an “African” perspective

• My views have been shaped by my location – not only as part of the developing world, but from a continent that is (often) portrayed as a dark, and “failed” continent

• Africa, as part of the “global south,” increasingly contests

historical descriptions and definitions and exclusions from decisions that (in)directly affect us

• My views have been shaped and continue to be shaped by a number of authors and works, such as …

Metaliteracy in beta: discourses not information

Information is never neutral and always in service of or used to contest dominant discourses.

We therefore need to understand information as field with different players, and different agendas, rules,

power-relations, inclusion and exclusion

Metaliteracy (Mackey & Jacobson, 2011)

Image retrieved from retrieved from http://metaliteracy.cdlprojects.com/what.htm

Understand format type and delivery

mode

Evaluate user feedback as active

researcher

Create a context for user-generated

information

Evaluate dynamic content critically

Produce original content in multiple

media formats

Understand personal privacy,

information ethics and intellectual property issues

Share information in participatory environmentsMackey, T.P., & Jacobson, T.E. (2011). Reframing

information literacy as metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, 72(1), 62-78.

Web 2.0 is a huge information warehouse

THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY

Web 2.0 is a jigsaw puzzle of fragmented interconnected

piecesTHE HYPERTEXTUAL

CONNECTION

Web 2.0 is a vast souk or market of digital services and

productsTHE GLOBAL MARKET

Web 2.0 is a stage for multimodal expression

MULTIMEDIA & AUDIOVISUAL COMMUNICATION

Web 2.0 is a public space or assembly of human interaction

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Web 2.0 is an artificial ecosystem for human experience

VIRTUAL INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS

WEB 2.0

Area, M., & Pessoa, T. (2012). From the solid to the liquid: New literacies for the cultural changes of Web 2.0. Communicar. Scientific Journal of Media Communication. DOI: 10.3916/C38-2011-02-01. http://www.revistacomunicar.com/pdf/preprint/38/En-01-PRE-12378.pdf

From the solid to the liquid: New literacies for the cultural changes of Web 2.0

Liquid metaliteracy (Area & Pessoa, 2012; Mackey & Jacobson, 2011)

Mackey & Jacobson (2011) Area & Pessoa (2012)

Understand format type and delivery mode Instrumental competence: “technical control over each technology and its logical use procedures”

Evaluate user feedback as active researcher Cognitive-intellectual competence: “the acquisition of specific cognitive knowledge and skills that enable the subject to search for, select, analyze, interpret and recreate the vast amount of information to which he (sic) has access [to]…”

Create a context for user-generated information

Evaluate dynamic content critically Socio-communicative competence: “the development of a set of skills related to the creation of various text types… and their dissemination in different languages”

Produce original content in multiple media formats

Understand personal privacy, information ethics and intellectual property issues

Axiological competence: “referring to the awareness that ICT are not aseptic or neutral from the social viewpoint but exert a significant influence on the cultural and political environment of our society…”

Share information in participatory environments

Critical consciousness as the foundation for metaliteracy as agency

Understand format type and delivery mode

Evaluate user feedback as active researcher

Create a context for user-generated information

Evaluate dynamic content critically

Produce original content in multiple media formats

Understand personal privacy, information ethics and intellectual property

issues

Share information in participatory environments

METALITERACYM

ETAL

ITER

ACY

“The act of learning to read and write start from a very comprehensive understanding of the act of reading the world, something which humans do before reading the words” (Freire, 1989, p. xvii; emphasis added)

“To be illiterate, for Freire, was not only the lack of skills of reading or writing; it was to feel powerless and dependent in a much more general way …” (Burbules & Berk, 1999, p. 52)

In order to read the world, I therefore need to be able to map who shapes/shaped my world, the reasons for it, how the shape influences where I am and the choices I have, what the rules of my world are and who benefits from those rules (and my adherence) and how to disrupt and formulate alternative narratives, for myself and for others.

Critical consciousness as the foundation for metaliteracy

Making sense of the 21st century

Our understanding of the scope and function of literacies is influenced by our understanding of the

major discourses of the current (and future) age

“A global cocktail of intolerable poverty and outrageous wealth, starvation, mass terrorism with nuclear/biological weapons, world war, deliberate pandemics and religious insanity, might plunge humanity into a worldwide pattern of unending hatred and violence – a new Dark Age” (Martin, 2007, p. 32)

A new dark age?

How does such a view of the world shape my view of the scope, definition and function of literacy?

Met

a/ d

isco

urse

lite

racy

Rampant consumerism and rapacious capitalism

“From cradle to coffin we are trained and drilled to treat shops as pharmacies filled with drugs to cure or at least mitigate all the illnesses and afflictions in our lives…” (Bauman, 2012, p. 89)• The myth of economic growth• Downward mobility

Local and global (dis)connections and contestations

Finding local answers to globally produced problems? (Bauman, 1998; Bauman, 2012; Castells, 2009)

A networked age

Not everyone is included, but everyone is affected… “Networks are created not just to communicate, but also to gain position, to outcommunicate”

(Geoff Mulgan in Castells, 2009, p. 26)

Personal privacy and state security

• Collection and use of personal data

• Crusades, jihads and the clash of fundamentalisms

• “Ubiquitous mixophobia” (Bauman, 2012, p. 63) – Growth of interdictory spaces & gated communities (Bauman, 2012, p. 68)….

Meta/ discourse literacy

Image retrieved from http://www.allstaractivities.com/images/soccer-positions.gif

In order to be literate/ a player in the 21st century I need to understand the field, the game, and my position, and

my skills

• Boundaried site• Players have set/

predetermined positions

• Rules are predetermined

• Players have different skills

• What players can do is determined by their position on the field

• The physical condition of the field impacts play

Image retrieved from http://envirolaw.com/wp-content/uploads/black-student.jpg

CAPITAL: What type of “capital” I

have or don’t have • Economic• Cultural• Social• Symbolic

HABITUS: Who and how my past shaped/shapes me:• Genetic makeup• Gender• Race• Socio-economic circumstances• Parental background• Geopolitical location• Educational experiences• Health• The choices I made in the

past…• My dispositions• Etc.

These are durable and transposable (Maton, 2012)

In order to be literate in a networked and (un)flat world I need to know…

THE FIELD:How does the field in which I find myself in, shape me?

What/who shapes the field?

Who are the (other) players in the field:• Who are they?• How come they are

shapers?• What are the rules?• Who are the referees?

Looking at metaliteracy from a field theory (Bourdieu) perspective

The “field” is not a benign, pastoral space, but rather le champ – a battle field, where players have set positions, predetermined paces, specific rules which novice players must learn together with basic skills.

“What players can do, and where they can go during the game, depends on their field position. The actual physical condition of the field (whether it is wet, dry, well grassed or full of potholes), also has an effect on what players can do and this how the game is played” (Thompson, 2012, p. 66).

[(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice/agency(Maton, 2012, p. 50)

A field theory perspective on agency

My dispositions - how my past and present (and my understanding thereof) shaped and still shape me

The capital that I have acquired in the process (or not)

The field – the context in which I find myself in. This is not a neutral space, but is, itself, shaped by various structures, and agencies of individuals and collectives

My practice/agency and my understanding thereof…

We are not “pre-programmed automatons acting out the implications of our upbringings” (Maton, 2012, p. 50).

“…where we are in life in any one moment [is]… the result of numberless events in the past that shaped our path” (Maton, 2012, p. 51).

Literacy and agency is understanding that the choices we have in any particular moment and time in a specific context, are shaped by the positions we have in that particular social field at that moment in time.

Complicating matters is the fact that the context we find ourselves in (at that particular moment in time), has itself been shaped by and is shaped by other contexts, individuals in an evolving power play.

Being literate in a networked and (un)flat world it is important to know…

HAB

ITU

S

FIELD

CAPITAL

Image retrieved from http://metaliteracy.cdlprojects.com/what.htm

(In)conclusions1. We need to understand the emergence of social media in the broader

context of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental discourses and contestations.

2. It is crucial to understand who produces (and consumes) information, for what purpose, what claims are made, and who/what supports/excludes the producers and claims

3. The production, reproduction, sharing, remixing of information is not a neutral act but flows from and often perpetuates existing discourses

4. The need for critical and self-reflective agency has never been greater, formulating alternative narratives, disrupting normative discourses and asking new questions

Thank you. Ke a leboga. Baie dankie

Dr Paul PrinslooDirectorate for Curriculum and Learning Development (DCLD)

TVW 10-156P O Box 392

Unisa, 0003, Republic of South AfricaPersonal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com

Twitter profile: @14prinsp+27 (0) 12 429 3683 (office)

+27 (0) 12 429 3551 (fax)+27 (0) 82 3954 113 (mobile)

ReferencesArea, M., & Pessoa, T. (2012). From the solid to the liquid: New literacies for the cultural changes of Web 2.0.

Communicar. Scientific Journal of Media Communication. DOI: 10.3916/C38-2011-02-01. http://www.revistacomunicar.com/pdf/preprint/38/En-01-PRE-12378.pdf

Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization. The human consequences. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2012a). On education. Conversations with Riccardo Mazzeo. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2012b). Collateral damage. Social inequalities in a global age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Burbules, N.C. & Berk, R. (1999). Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: relations, differences and limits, in Critical

theories in education: changing the terrains of knowledge and politics, edited by T.S. Popkewitz & L. Fendler. New York: Routledge, pp. 45—66.

Castells, M (2009). Communication power. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Freire, P. (1973). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Freire, P. (1989). Learning to question: a pedagogy of liberation. New York: Continuum.Ghemawat, P. (2011). World 3.0. Global prosperity and how to achieve it. Boston: Harvard Business School

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72(1), 62-78. Martin, J. (2007). The meaning of the 21st century. A vital blueprint for ensuring our future. London, UK: Transworld

Publishers. Maton, K. (2012). Habitus. In Michael Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu. Key concepts. Durham, UK : Acumen

Publishing, pp. 48—64. Mayer-Schönberger, V. (2009). Delete. The virtue of forgetting in the digital age. Princeton: Princeton University

Press. Thompson, P. (2012). Field. In Michael Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu. Key concepts. Durham, UK : Acumen

Publishing, pp. 65—82.