Half a metaphor

by John Q on November 1, 2007

I’m writing a piece (in the form of a debate with Jason Potts) on the Internet and non-market innovation (open source, blogs, wikis and Web 2.0 more generally) and the editors asked us to say something about digital literacy. I’ve never paid much attention to this metaphor, maybe because of excessive exposure to its predecessor, computer literacy.

It strikes me though, that discussion of digital literacy focuses almost entirely on reading (how to navigate the Web, find reliable information and so on). The things I’m talking about are forms of writing.

Thinking about the rise of text literacy, the distinction tends to be blurred a bit, because most (not all) people who learn to read also learn to write. Still, there’s plenty of discussion of the importance of writing to groups (women, working people) traditionally excluded from written culture.

So, I’m surprised at the neglect of this point in relation to digital literacy, especially because the Internet has done so much to break down the asymmetry between a small group of writers and a large group of readers that characterises most communications media. Having said this, I’m sure this point has been made many times before, and I invite readers to write in with good references.

As an aside, “computer literacy” programs in the late 70s and early 80s had, if anything, the opposite problem. Lots of emphasis on how to code in BASIC and very little appreciation of the potential for computers as tools for general use.

{ 16 comments }

1

Cannoneo 11.01.07 at 12:51 am

Good point. Growing up, I was never interested in becoming a computer wiz; the local hackers were a competitive bunch and seemed to own that field. So I was just going along with what was available. As a kid, this involved learning in school how to program a “turtle” robot to move around. Then we got an Apple II and I taught myself simple BASIC, little games involving input and output, and using coordinates to make graphics. Some of my earliest reflections on infinity involved the command “Goto 10.” But once the Mac and Windows came in, it was all applications and then browsing. As far as computers go, I’ve been a consumer all along; but early on, production skills were what was on offer.

2

Felix 11.01.07 at 2:11 am

I had a conversation with Charles Kenny on this subject back in July, which has links to a few interesting papers.

3

Quo Vadis 11.01.07 at 8:55 am

It depends upon what you regard as ‘writing’.

The types of writing you mention are more broadcast oriented – one producer can participate with potentially many millions of consumers whereas one consumer can participate with only as many producers as they can read regularly.

If you extend the definition of ‘writing’ to include personal one-to-one or one-to-several communications like email and discussion groups, then your point may not hold.

With regard to computer literacy, it is said that the spreadsheet was the “killer app” for the PC – that is the application that made the PC an indispensable tool. While that may have been true in the business environment, for the home user, the killer app would have to be the Internet. Before that, the PC was little more than a typewriter for most home users.

4

Chris Williams 11.01.07 at 9:44 am

People who study yr actual literacy are backlashing against the over-use of the phrase “______ literacy”. See:
Vincent, David (2003) ‘Literacy Literacy’ in Interchange, 34 http://oro.open.ac.uk/9709/

5

stostosto 11.01.07 at 10:38 am

..groups (women, working people) traditionally excluded from written culture.

Women???

6

John Quiggin 11.01.07 at 11:36 am

#5, it’s surely not controversial that women were traditionally excluded from written culture, and that this exclusion broke down (at different times in different places) with the spread of literacy.

7

Stuart 11.01.07 at 12:48 pm

Isn’t it the case that something like 90% of visitors to blogs, wikis, forums and the like don’t contribute, they only read (and something like 1% of the visitors make the vast majority of comments/changes). I wonder how this factors into it – are certain groups less likely to participate still?

8

stostosto 11.01.07 at 2:28 pm

jq

I didn’t imply that your mention was “controversial”. I was simply baffled. I gather you take a very long view on the word “traditionally”. OK then.

9

c.l. ball 11.01.07 at 3:39 pm

Sort of off your bleg topic, but why the adjective “non-market”? The software used to make blogs, wikis, etc. are products that are sold and have markets. If you mean non-compensated, that’s different. Though more and more blogs are taking adds. Thankfully, not this one.

10

Peter 11.01.07 at 4:28 pm

#5: 19th-century European literature was written primarily by men, yet read primarily by women. I think it is fair to say that women have traditionally been excluded from written culture (at least in the West).

11

John Quiggin 11.01.07 at 7:58 pm

“The software used to make blogs, wikis, etc. are products that are sold and have markets.”

Partially true at best. Nearly all wiki software and the most popular blog software (notably WordPress) is open source, and this is increasingly true for browsers and other software used in reading. Much of what isn’t open source is free.

But the point about ads is important, as I noted a while back.

12

Person 11.01.07 at 9:11 pm

john_quiggin: I’m going to have to echo c._l._ball’s comment. Something about the characterization “non-market” rubs me the wrong way. Generally speaking, you can find a pretty tremendous list of things that are “not-X” for any X. Why not call it “non-violent” innovation or “non-aquatic innovation” or “non-brick-and-mortar” innovation?

It seems that when you group some things as “non-X”, the implicit message is “and folks who support X would oppose this”. But “pro-market” types don’t, to my knowledge, want to restrict or even disparage wikis in any way. “Pro-market” people are more unified in their support of some specific set of property rights, which these technologies unambiguously rely on, unless you want to focus on those wikis that do no assert any legal rights over the servers they use.

The servers, by the way, are purchased on a market, which IMHO makes the characterization even more questionable.

13

c.l. ball 11.01.07 at 9:20 pm

But neither “open source” under the OSI definition nor “free software” under the FSF definition restricts the ability to charge for the software. I could offer WordPress for sale if I wished to; I just could not restrict anyone from redistributing it freely or even more expensively. That is, I cannot condition the license on royalties or fees.

These may be non-profit activities, but I’m not sure they are really non-market. The wiki work would be the major exception since it is mostly donation funded, and was created by Bomis without any apparent commercial purpose.

But WordPress and many others are created by venture capital-funded firms and have commercial affiliations. WordPress in part — but only in part — makes Akismet have a greater purpose, and wordpress has limited enterprise level for-pay services.

14

JamesWalden 11.04.07 at 1:04 am

For “digital literacy,” I’d like to see something that’s not just about current trends like blogs, but that deals with the fundamentals of informatics that students will be able to use for the rest of their lives, i.e. something along the lines of

Peter Denning’s Great Principles of Computing

or

CS Unplugged

or

CMU’s Computational Thinking project

15

Peter Clay 11.05.07 at 5:31 pm

I’m surprised Seth F has not been along to remind you that it’s not the writing, but the getting read, that matters.

16

Timon 11.06.07 at 9:40 am

There is an interesting conversation between Jon Udell and Mike Caulfield of BlueHampshire.com at IT Conversations [26 Oct 07]. I realized after listening that I had never really understood the difference between a non-commercial blog and traditional editorial. Basically he describes the process of bringing new people into the BlueHampshire project and dealing with their expectations, and in doing so makes a very lucid summary of new media and the knowledge necessary to work in them.

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