During this course we will ask: Why are there so many modern forms of literacy in circulation including digital, media, information, data, and AI literacy? What does each form mean? What are these calls for more literacy responding to? What is difference between literacy and education? What makes a successful literacy intervention? When does literacy fail or even backfire?
We will begin by taking a overview of the concept of literacy, examine its history and politics, then compare and contrast old forms literacy to today’s such as AI literacy. We examine why many international organisations consider the corruption of information (embodied in phrases such as post-truth) one of the main threats to humanity.
You will leave the course with an understanding of literacies as response to anxieties, instability, rapid technological change, and power imbalances. You will also know literacy as means to an end that produces intended and unintended results. And, you will appreciate that literacies can be negative and well as positive because often the most effective deception and manipulation techniques online are evidence of forms of literacy. This course will therefore enable you to consider literacies in more sophisticated ways that help you design better interventions.
Keywords: digital literacy; media literacy, data literacy, information literacy, AI literacy, critical thinking, reflexivity
Week 1 A Brief History of Literacies
How has literacy evolved from something that once belonged exclusively to elites and their institutions to what it is today? When and why did people become literate and what were the effects of mass literacy? It is important to answer these questions because many forms of literacy that we will study are sold as having similar potential to, for example, empower ordinary people. We will therefore explore the evolution of literacy from its origins to how it has developed in response to new forms of digital technology and media.
Week 2 Literacies and Crisis
What are calls the latest calls for literacy responding to? When there is a crisis in misinformation or skills shortages, why is literacy the default answer? Are we in a post-truth society that can be addressed with more forms of literacy?
Weeks 3-8 Forms of Literacy
Each week, we will look at how they are defined, how they have been researched and how they have been operationalised in policy:
- Week 3 Digital Literacy
- Week 4 Media Literacy
- Week 5 Data Literacy
- Week 6 AI Literacy
- Week 7 Critical Literacies
- Week 8 Radical Literacies
Week 9 Challenges for Literacy
What militates against someone achieving literacy? What limitations, biases and other vulnerabilities to we have that prevent us becoming literate? When evaluating what is true at the limits of our knowledge, what is the role of trust and authority? What happens when literacies back fire? When is literacy policy a distraction or substitute for other policy interventions?
Week 10 Literacy, Power and Inequalities
Why is literacy unevenly distributed? Why do some people have fewer opportunities to be achieve literacy? Is literacy a response to power and source of power in itself?
Weeks 11 and 12
Assignments
This course’s approach is to mobilise insights from many disciplines including sociology, philosophy, psychology, history, media and technology studies, and education to achieve a meta-understanding on literacies as a relational concept. We recognise the experience and sophistication of our student cohort by involving you in a dialogue about the concerns that are driving a global interest in literacies as a solution to polarization, election manipulation, propaganda and the misuse of technology to deceive people. Drawing on expertise within the faculty and cohort we will examine solutions for different regional and national contexts. Together we will evaluate the latest academic research, explore real world case studies, learn to apply critical concepts and think reflexively about our own biases and assumptions. There will be asynchronous discussions, and live sessions with peers and course tutors.
Coursework design (40%):
Choose a form of literacy from the literature and design a research instrument to capture it.
For example, if you choose AI Literacy how will be able to tell someone has achieved the level of literacy described in the literature
End of course assignment (60%):
With reference to 1 or more forms of literacy, explain why the concept of literacy is relational.
On completion of the course, you will be able to:
- Critically engage with shifting literacies concepts such as 'information literacy', ‘digital literacy’, and 'algorithmic literacy'
- Critically examine your own information seeking practices
- Critically reflect on the development of the information-seeking practices of your students, clients and/or co-workers in educational contexts
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of issues related to the publication, circulation, and re-use of information, and the role of digital platforms in shaping knowledge
- Engage with information as an element of social and political power