Everyday new literacies

quotidian
Looking at university students’ work is always a bit of a mixed experience. Nonetheless, I’m always open to new ways of formulating old ideas about new literacy. This morning I read how we assume a social identity when writing for a specific purpose (eg on a social networking site). I liked this and mapped it on to the idea of performing identity through text in which the purpose of getting your message across to the intended audience is implicitly a kind of identity work. Quoting from here : sites like MySpace and YouTube represent social and semiotic domains for youngsters where their communicative competence and identity are played out and created (p.185). I also note in the Erstad article that digital literacy is core competence in the Norwegian curriculum but that: there is so far a lack of discussion about what digital literacy really is. Ah well, that just seems to be the everyday muddle around new literacies!