Technology & Emergent Literacies in 'Times of Instability'

What are we going to uncover when we decide to examine what literacy is becoming, is continuously becoming? It is duly acknowledged that the nature of literacy as a concept is something of continuous debate, especially in these times of ‘instability’, as Kress would say (Literacy in the New Media Age, 2003). The increasing extent to which information and communication is electronically mediated is encouraging changes, not just in the way that language (either written or verbal) is being used, but in the way the individual citizens within a given culture relate to each other.

Space and time constraints on human communication is increasingly losing its power, especially with the increasing expansion of mobile technologies. And it is here I turn to a major focus of my research, an obsession of my academic identity: the ways in which mobile technologies, in their wide variety of forms, are changing literacy practices. This interest has required deep thought and contemplation on just what ‘literacy’ is. Should I be drawn by historical imperatives to return this study to focus on written language? Or like James Paul Gee and Victoria Carrington, am I going to seek to expand it’s focus beyond the confines of the linguistic domain? (Carrington, V. (2005). “Txting: the end of civilization (again)?” Cambridge Journal of Education, 25(2), 172).
In the face of the increasing complexity of human behaviour around mobile technologies, and their continual penetration into all areas of our lives, I must acknowledge that ‘literacy’ must develop as a concept to cover the multimodal nature of human communication. It seemed strange to me upon first realising it, that the New London Group (”A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies,” 1996) and others following in the Multiliteracies tradition (eg. Kress, 2003), should firstly acknowledge the essential link between literacy and social practice, and secondly, the multimodal nature of human social interaction, and then turn and seek to restrict the focus of study through chaining literacy to its written form.

I don’t know if the approach of expanding literacy is any better. There is the feeling within academia that with over-use of a term leads to a reduction in the rigor of its meaning. By extending literacy to cover multiple modes of communication, are we devaluing or reducing it’s value in some way? This is hard to believe when what I am seeking to do is add to its complexity and tie literacy into social practice even more closely.

This is where the idea of ‘emergent literacies’ came from for the heading. I realise that the idea of ‘emergent literacies’ has received a good deal of discussion and coverage throughout educational literature. The terms sparks glimmers of recognition in my mind: “I know I have read about this somewhere…but where?” In using the term in the manner in which I have, I am seeking to use it to mean two things, both indicated in the term ‘emergent’. Firstly, we seek to understand literacy practices that are ‘emerging’ as a result of increasing electronic-mediation of information/communication, as well as the increasing diversity of voices in a globally connected world. As a result - and especially with relation to mobile technologies - I am seeking to understand the literacy practices that are emerging in this changing time.

However, ‘emergent’ is also taken to mean something more continuous and ever-present. In acknowledging that literacy is essentially linked to social practice, ’situational considerations’ (Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, 2003) or ‘frames’ (Kress, 2003) - context - become vitally important. Therefore, we continuously have literacy practices being reworked, transformed by individuals to suit specific situations. In this respect, literacy is continuously emerging - somewhat analogous to Derrida’s concept of ‘deferral’ (is that where that term came from?) - in relation to texts or ‘texts-in-the-making’ (Kress, 2003, 88). This is of course, taking a very poststructural/postmodern approach to the concept of text. But when considering mobile technologies can we do anything but.

Consider the types of ‘texts’ that can be presented or accessed on devices such as iPods (and Mp3 players generally), mobile phones (cellphones), portable gaming consoles (eg. GameBoy, PSP), PDAs. Few of the texts accessed or created here conform to traditionalist concepts. So what are we left with in relation to the emerging relationship between mobile technologies and literacy? What literacy practices are deployed in using these devices as part of social practice? How does an individual decide the ‘aptness’ (Kress, 2003) of a mode to use for a specific communication in changing and unstable situational contexts?

For me, so far, the mobility of these devices, their ability to be used across mutable spaces, has the greatest impact on literacy practices. What emergent literacy practices students are demonstrating in response to mobile technologies, is still an are in need of a great deal of research. I am seeking to understand and construct a concept of “mobile literacies” - what this entails is a matter of continuous discovery.