Multiple Literacies for the Age of the Internet

JULIE FRECHETTE, Ph.D.Associate Professor of CommunicationWorcester State University486 Chandler StreetWorcester, MA 01602Email: [email protected]: (508) 929-8814FAX: (508) 929-8170

MEDIA LITERACY FOR THE WEB 2.0: ONLINE STRATEGIES FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

In the 21st century, few would question the growing

importance of telecommunication technology in the classroom.

According to the report “Global Links: Lessons From the World”

(2004), among the top 10 national economies in the world, the

United States ranks at or near the top on several measures of

educational technology. For example, it ranks first in the

percent of 15-year-olds using the Internet at school several

times a week, with 22 percent (p. 1). The United Kingdom had

18.1 percent, and Italy had 5.5 percent. Studies show that the

U.S.’ student-to-computer ratio of 5:1 is tied for first in the

world, along with Australia and Latvia, with New Zealand and

Norway a close second at 6:1. As for connectivity to the

Internet, other countries have more than twice the percentage of

school computers connected to the Internet compared with the

U.S., namely Finland (84 percent) and Iceland (83 percent),

Austria (69 percent), Denmark (65 percent), Sweden (74 percent),

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and the United Kingdom (51 percent). Notwithstanding, according

to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2005, the number of

schools in the U.S. using broadband connections to the Internet

increased from 80 percent in 2000 to 97 percent in 2005 (Wells

and Lewis, 2006).

As exciting as these buoyant and bright-eyed prospects of

technological development and production within schools may be,

many educators, administrators, government leaders, parents, and

citizens remain skeptical of the significance of these

technological strides. Around the world, parents and schools want

to ensure that educational technology resources are managed and

coordinated in ways that maximize teaching and learning. Given

this concern, many educators see the need for integrating a

variety of literacy skills into the curriculum so students are

properly equipped to participate in a global system of electronic

technologies that unite individuals and groups online. While the

term “information literacy” is used among librarians and media

specialists to emphasize the need to make sense of the vast

amounts of information available electronically online, I use the

term “media literacy online” or “cyber-literacy” in this paper to

invoke a broader assessment of the Internet as a decentralized

medium with a unique form, grammar and content. Given that the

emergence of new technologies requires an evolving superfluity of

literacies, my conceptualization of media literacy as it relates

to the Internet is meant to be inclusive of other literacies,

including information literacy, audio-visual literacy, computer

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literacy, network literacy, and digital literacy (Eisenberg,

Lowe, Spitzer, 2004), whilst retaining an emphasis on the

development of critical thinking skills and an emphasis on the

constructed nature of rich media texts. Thus, this paper will

offer a multifaceted approach toward achieving media literacy

online through media content literacy, medium literacy and media

grammar literacy (Meyrowitz, 1998). While much of the analysis

is geared toward a better understanding of the World Wide Web

(WWW) due to its use and ubiquity, other functions of online

media, such as email, instant messaging / online chat and

discussion boards are examined as well.

This paper will illustrate how a multiple literacies

curriculum enhances media literacy online. By clarifying our

analytic definition of media literacy in relation to current

debates about its nature and purpose, we will advance the notion

that production and critical analysis go hand-in-hand. This

includes both low and high-tech production elements, and is

especially important as schools are publishing web sites that

represent their educational philosophies, approaches, and student

work, and as students learn to represent themselves through their

own web sites or pages, social networking, wikis and blogs.

Without an understanding of the signification of various design

elements utilized to produce low or high-end web content with

text, audio, or graphic capabilities, as well as a proficient

understanding of the quality or sources of information contained

within their represented text and links, students will once again

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lose the critical analytical component which I argue must be the

thrust of media pedagogy.

Further, as Lewis and Jhally maintain (1998), media literacy

must go beyond a purely “text-centered” approach so that the

structure of media institutions are analyzed in order to help

people appreciate and argue for alternatives to a commercial

media system. Accordingly, the design of a cyber-literacy

program must center on the political and economic forces that

drive much of the Internet. This process includes asking who

owns the sites and domains of online interactivity and electronic

information? What are their goals and motives in structuring and

organizing online environments? How do advertising, marketing

and the use of tracking devices affect and alter the Internet’s

organizational structure and potential as a medium? Having said

that, we will also explore how the Internet presents unique

possibilities for non-dominant voices, ideas, or representations

to emerge through this decentralized technological form.

The Need for Media Literacy with Technology

Popularly defined as “the ability to access, analyze,

evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms,” media

literacy is the exploration and critical examination of the

deluge of mediated messages we receive daily in visual and/or

textual form (Leveranz and Tyner, 1993, p. 21). Media literacy

offers us a way to become “literate” in visual and popular texts,

giving us the tools through which to examine the political,

cultural, historical, economic, and social ramifications of the

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media (Frechette, 1997, p. 2). As educational institutions have

recognized, rather than challenged, cultural shifts from print to

audio-visual communication, media literacy has been steadily

growing in America and internationally. However, even the most

progressive educational initiatives have not gone far enough in

critically analyzing new and emerging media. The time has come

to provide the means for media literacy in cyberspace.

In order for students to become lifelong learners who can

successfully navigate their ways online and benefit from new

online environments, non-traditional classroom strategies or

pedagogies need to be devised and utilized in order to transform

conceptualizations of education from teaching to learning through

cyberspace. Media scholar Len Masterman uses the term

“critically autonomous” to describe the process whereby media

educators develop in students “enough self-confidence and

critical maturity to be able to apply critical judgments to media

texts which they will encounter in the future” (2001, p. 25). He goes on

to explain that this process involves student reflection and

criticism on their own use and understanding of the media outside

of the classroom. This notion of critical autonomy underscores

the importance of engaged online interactivity that includes

critical analysis to judge texts, as well as the ability to use

knowledge for transformative means of social activism and

engagement.

Encircled within scholarly debates about the pros and cons

of computer and telecommunications technology in schools lays a

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body of literature, albeit modest in size, which ventures toward

the articulation of transformative possibilities within

cyberspace. Lankshear, Peters, and Knobel (1996) champion the

potential for critical pedagogy to expand and develop within

cyberspace environments, advancing several supportive arguments

for the utilization of cyberspace to transform classroom

practices. First, they contend that cyberspace environments have

the potential for making students aware of the historical and

contingent nature of discourse. This comes partly as a result of

Net users’ experiences as creators, refiners and sustainers of

social practices through the act of encoding and decoding symbols

and images. Second, they argue that fixed roles are challenged

online since interactions, experiences, and information within

cyberspace environments point to the complexity, diversity and

multiplicity of human subjectivities, the highly fluid nature of

identity, and the enormous possibilities for creating personal

identities (all of which challenge modernist notions of

subjectivity). Third, conceptualizations of pedagogy can shift

from teaching to learning within cyberspace. This results from

the fact that, in many instances, students know more about

computer mediated communications technology than teachers, which

displaces traditional power dynamics between the educator and the

educatee. This does not mean that the teacher imparts irrelevant

information or knowledge, but that student proficiencies in this

area should be tapped into and considered integral aspects of the

learning process. Furthermore, collaborative learning is more

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feasible since the advent of the Internet because students can

access a variety of information / sources which allows them to go

beyond teacher and textbook knowledge and curriculum details. As

a result, learning can potentially become more collaborative

between students and teachers. Without giving up claims to

authority or valuable information, teachers can deploy knowledge

by becoming interrogators, conceptualizers, and facilitators of

student-generated questions and ideas in a classroom more attuned

to change and human diversity.

Garner and Gillingham (1996) also explain that the use of

the Internet can radically alter the role of the teacher in the

classroom. Warshauer (1999) believes that at the center of

controversies over electronic literacies are broader societal

struggles over the nature of literacy and schooling (p. 13).

Despite the techno-optimism that many educators share,

technology can and should do more than drill basic skills or aid

efficiency in communications and research. Various thoughtful

educators propose approaches to technology in the classroom that

raise questions, require deeper study, and even problematize

technology itself (Apple, 1993; Freire, 1998; Giroux, 2000). For

example, Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux contend that more often

than not, for-profit mainstream media reproduce stereotypes due

to an imbalance between those who wield cultural, economic,

political and technological power and those who do not (Freire,

1989, Giroux, 1998). Michael Apple and Lois Weis made similar

claims when arguing that the reproduction of knowledge through

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rigid curricula, pedagogy, and school structures perpetuates

societal inequities (1983). As argued by Marshall McLuhan

(1964), each technology / medium has specific traits that set it

apart from other communication contexts and interactions. Thus,

it is vital that we analyze and understand the relationship

between technology and power, especially within educational

environments.

For Larry Cuban, researching the effectiveness of computer

use in classrooms is one means to assessing its impact. In his

analysis of computer use in classrooms (2001), Cuban discovers

that computer use is sporadic at best, and that most teachers use

computers to support traditional pedagogy and curricula. This

leads him to conclude that gains in academic achievement are not

necessarily enhanced by contemporary uses of computers in

schools. Such findings resonate with research by Barbara Means,

Geneva Haertel and Linda Roberts (2004) as they explore the

implications of technology within schools and classrooms. They

argue that it is the social and educational uses of technology

that determine its use and effectiveness.

Given the need to better address the impact of media and

technology on learning in the information age, scholars and

educators have begun to stress the need for media education

programs that promote critical thinking. Alvermann and Hagood

(2000) argue, “As a result of the greater demands that students

face in New Times, they must acquire the analytic tools necessary

for critically ‘reading’ all kinds of media texts—film, video,

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MTV, the Internet, and so on …” (p. 203). Building on the

struggle to move literacy, in general, beyond the mere

acquisition of skills to critical thinking about texts and

society, Luke (2001) advocates the combining of media studies

with ICT (information and communication technology). She asserts,

many kids of this generation of cybernauts are already

literate in the skills of hypertext navigation and production—

but not necessarily skilled in the application of critical

analytic tools… In short, we should be getting students to

ask the same questions of dot.com culture and

cybertextuality that we expect them to ask of broadcaster

static print-based texts. (p. 93)

While learning to access and evaluate information online,

students need also to ask questions about the human impacts of

the very technology they are using. For instance, what are the

benefits and disadvantages of globalization, what about privacy

issues online, and how can the Internet serve democracy?

Multiple Literacies for the Internet Age

In documenting the obstacles to the development of online

media education in the United States, Kubey (1998) contends that

there is a lack of support from parents, as well as teachers and

administrators, who want their children to be ‘computer literate’

rather than ‘media literate.’ Traditionally, computer literacy

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has referred to one’s technological proficiencies using

particular software or hardware components or computer

applications. Computer literacy prioritizes skills-based

learning that emphasizes the technological medium over the

process and objective of learning. Obtaining computer skills has

often been associated with upward mobility within the realm of

commerce and business. As Kubey explains, ‘parents believe that

computer expertise can equal a leg up in the job market’ (1998,

p. 60). While workplace concerns have long dominated education,

the merging of computer, information, and media literacy skills

is long overdue. With the proliferation of computer-mediated

information technologies in schools, students are faced with the

challenge of learning not only how to acquire useful information

through new technologies, but more importantly, how to critically

analyze and evaluate information once it’s been retrieved and

deciphered. This critical learning process is only becoming more

arduous with the proliferation of information forms and sources.

An cyber-literacy approach would help foster critical

learning by asking the following:

1) What does it mean to be media literate in the information

age?

2) How can information and online-literacy be initiated?

3) How can the learning process be transformed?

4) What are the benefits and drawbacks of globalization?

5) What about privacy issues online?

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6) What impact will commercialization and consolidation of

the Internet have on information and access?

7) How can the Internet serve democratic goals?

With these questions in mind, a curriculum framework for

media literacy online can be built using multiple literacies

(Gee, Leu, Meyrowitz, Sheridan) —media content literacy, media

grammar literacy, and medium literacy. Teachers can ‘help

students become critical consumers of information through an

experiential learning process that teaches both “about” and

“through” media’ (Quesdada & Lockwood Summers, 1998, p. 30). This

requires teaching methods that encourage group dialogue through

the use of questioning strategies aimed at encouraging the higher

levels of cognitive learning. In order for critical autonomy or

independent critical thinking to be attained, students must be

motivated to learn for the sake of personal empowerment, rather

than acquisition of marketable skills. According to Bloom’s

taxonomy of educational objectives (1956), cognitive development

is best attained through knowledge, comprehension, application,

analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Although Bloom developed

these cognitive measures well before the widespread use of

computer and the Internet in education, their relevancy remains.

As Gilster (1997) explains, digital literacy requires ‘the

ability to read with meaning and to understand’ as it applies to

the Internet (p. 33). Just as Bloom established measures for

learning competencies that enable learners to make informed

judgments after a series of cognitive development processes,

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Gilster believes that cyber-cognition demands similar measures.

He explains that making informed decisions about what is found

online requires knowledge acquisition by developing and applying

online search skills; that analysis and synthesis come from

assembling knowledge ‘from diverse sources’ using Internet tools;

and that critical thinking must be developed ‘using the model of

the electronic word—hypertext and hypermedia’ (1997, pp. 2-3).

Media Content Literacy

One of the most important elements of Internet access involves

not only how much information we can acquire, but the quality of

the information we receive. When using the Internet, three

essential questions need asking in order to evaluate what we

stand to gain with this new technology: 1) how well can we make

discerning judgments about what we receive? 2) what ideas and

issues are available on the Internet? and 3) what absences and

silences exist, in other words, what is not to be found?

Unfortunately, while there is accurate and important information

accessible through the Internet, there is also much that is

inappropriate for learning purposes. This is especially troubling

for teachers. Crossman (1998) explains:

[many] teachers whose students use the Web are concerned

about the question of authenticity and reliability of

information on the Internet in general and the Web in

particular. Even the most casual evening of Web surfing

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reveals incredible amounts of trivia, misinformation, bad

manners, hostility, stupidity, and other vagaries of

humankind. (p. 31)

Using a media-as-conduits metaphor, Internet content literacy

carefully considers the value and reliability of information

acquired online. While few education models apply content

literacy to the Internet, library media specialists have been in

the forefront of devising content literacy as a means to enable

students to question the veracity of the information they receive

online. Drawing from Grassian’s UCLA College Library online

resource (2000), there are many analytical questions to be asked

when thinking critically about discipline-based Internet

resources. The majority of these questions are center on content

and evaluation.

The information source. One of the first evaluative questions for

web resources investigates the information provider or source. By

asking who the originator, creator, or author of a website (or

email) is, students can determine if a website represents a

group, an organization, an institution, a corporation, or a

governmental body. At the root of this question are concerns

regarding the reliability and representativeness of the

information acquired. Teachers would want their students to look

at the URL address provided on the home or front page of the site

in order to get clues as to whether the information comes from a

trustworthy institution, such as a school or university, or

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whether it is from an anonymous individual whose credibility

would need verification. Notwithstanding, given the conflation

between and among URL addresses, a more instructive approach to

discovering the legitimacy of the information source is to

examine the “About Us” or “Company Info” pages that appear on

nearly every organizational, educational, governmental or

corporate site. This approach allows for an assessment of a

website’s core mission, individual spokespeople affiliated with

the site / organization, press releases, annual reports, multiple

levels of sponsorship, and even ulterior motives for the site’s

existence, which may affect or compromise web content. Likewise,

it would be advisable for students to verify the qualifications

of content authors, sponsors, or supporters. Students would want

to find out if the website is officially or unofficially endorsed

or sponsored by particular groups, organizations, institutions,

and the like, as this again impacts on the credibility of the

information acquired.

Given the increasing commercialization of the Internet,

students would want to pay attention to the amount of

advertising, as well as unrelated graphics or links, as these

factors necessarily impact the content. For instance, if

information on oral hygiene is provided by a toothpaste

manufacturer seeking to influence brand-name loyalty, students

should be more skeptical of the claims being made within the

site. Other profit motives include fees for the use of access to

any of the information provided at a site. Naturally, students

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would want to determine whether such fees are warranted or

whether similar information could be found for free on other

sites, or through other research tools. In terms of politics,

students would want to discover the motives, values, and ideas

influencing the content so that they can better sort through and

evaluate the claims and assertions projected on a website.

Additional measures of objectivity include measurable objective

standards, verifiable facts, and careful consideration of biases,

gimmicks, sponsors and advertisements. Ideally, the purpose of a

website should be clearly indicated. Since this is not always

the case, further investigation through the use of evaluative

questions helps students better determine the motivations of the

content providers.

Influences on content. The next set of evaluative questions aims

to discover if the website or email describes or provides the

results of research or scholarly effort. In terms of basic

research skills, it makes sense for teachers to instill in their

students a curiosity regarding whether or not there are

sufficient references provided to other works to document

hypotheses, claims, or assertions. By asking if there is enough

information to properly cite the document, students can decide if

the information they have found is appropriate for a research

report. Students would want to know if the website / email

combines educational, research, and scholarly information with

commercial or non-commercial product or service marketing, as

this affects the underlying goals or objectives of the site.

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Other critical measures for assessing content accuracy include an

analysis of grammar, spelling and typos, page design, research

methods, sources and statistics, and balance and depth.

Coverage and Timeliness. In addition to analyzing political and

economic influences on content, online content literacy requires

evaluating the scope and depth of the information, the legitimacy

of hyperlinks, supportive evidence, comprehensiveness, as well as

comparing and contrasting online and traditional sources.

Finally, the timeliness of online information would need to be

fathomed so that students could discern whether or not the study

or research on the website / email is up to date. If the date of

the information is not easily located within the content,

students could look for the last update to the page or to the

site, at the bottom of the front or homepage. This enables

students to judge the accuracy of the information presented based

on their knowledge of recent scholarship, discoveries, or

perspectives that would affect previous findings.

Limits to Critical Literacy Initiatives. While the aforementioned

approaches to media content literacy offer a model toward

critical thinking online, there are limits to be aware of.

According to Fabos (2004), webpage evaluation practices are not

wholly effective. First, students are not bothering to use the

webpage evaluation skills educators are teaching. Second,

students continue to rely on questionable information for their

fact-supported, objective-style reports. Identifying who is

responsible for a webpage and verifying credentials is seen as

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too time-consuming for today’s youth, thereby underscoring the

need to cultivate such habits early on with a comprehensive

educational model for online literacy. Many students are often

willing to accept information without questioning the source.

Third, students are nervous about evaluating webpages when they

are unfamiliar with the topic they are investigating. Without

prior knowledge of the subject they are researching, they feel

ill equipped to identify what the most factual information is.

This finding indicates the need to devise an approach that

includes traditional print sources initially, rather than relying

upon online-only research. Finally, Fabos forewarns that many

webpages do their best to seem as unbiased as possible. All

organizations and corporations today use the web, in part, as a

tool for public relations and have adopted a ‘credibility

aesthetic’ to appear legitimate to any reader. Therefore, media

content literacy must go hand-in-hand with visual literacy, the

ability to understand and create images.

Content literacy skills are not exclusive to any media per

se, but are easily applicable from one medium to another.

Students can employ these same evaluative questions in studying

books, newspapers, magazines, television programs, and other

texts. Certainly, Internet content presents some unconventional

circumstances that set it apart from other research tools. Vast

amounts of information are available on any given topic, allowing

students more flexibility in conducting research than a school

library might offer. Nevertheless, students must first figure out

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how to find the type of information they are looking for, which

requires skills in conducting effective online excursions using

various search engines. Whereas students can always go to a

librarian or teacher for search tips or strategies, it is not

always easy to figure out what Internet sites are worthy of

perusal and which ones should be avoided. Librarians and

teachers will still need to offer students online resource sites

known as the ‘deep web’ that help students find educational sites

and portals that are reliable and useful.

Media Grammar Literacy

While there is nothing novel in applying critical evaluative

questions online, the critical study and utilization of the

Internet is distinctive in terms of its media grammar and form.

For this reason, media literacy in cyberspace must go beyond

online content literacy by addressing the peculiarities of the

Internet as a communication technology. Media grammar literacy

for the Internet requires an understanding of the production

elements used to alter people’s understanding of messages

communicated electronically. As such, teachers would want their

students to learn graphic design principles so that they better

understand how web pages are created or infused with carefully

crafted signifiers. Vibrant colors, large or unusual fonts,

flashing text, striking visuals, sound, and music, used to draw

or divert attention, need to be decoded so that students

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ascertain the function, intention, or goal served by the

graphics, icons, and design elements.

Consequently, the basic elements of graphic design, usually

reserved for art or vocational curricula, need to be integrated

across the curriculum so that students can better comprehend how

various production elements work to signify or connote particular

meanings in cyberspace. Since the Internet is both linear and

non-linear in form, there are many design elements used to

feature certain areas, visuals, or links that need to be

explored. Whether these elements are used for business,

educational, or civic means, students would want to evaluate the

creativity and effectiveness involved in the structural design of

the message by analyzing all of the rich media elements used to

comprise cyber-grammar, namely words, pictures, sounds, videos,

animation, hyper-media, and hyper-text.

Media grammar literacy also entails an analysis of the

interface of online content with a variety of other types of

content through media or service convergence, such as online

radio, and rhetorical convergence whereby new genres are created

from existing genres, such as blogs containing elements from

diaries, logs and advocacy journalism (Fagerjord & Storsul,

2007). Likewise, media grammar literacy encourages an

exploration of the ways that different modes of multimedia—sound,

images, visual codes, composition, banners, skyscraper ads— are

organized within the range of the computer screen. There are

also layers of graphical metaphors that can be decoded, such as

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the use of symbols for stop, back, and forward adopted from

traffic signs that are used as part of the lexicon of online

browser graphic controls. Other metaphors, such as Internet

explorer, invoke the type of online venturing required of savvy

Internet users. Moreover, with the increased frequency and

spectacle of commercials that appear in pop-ups, Internet users

must constantly discern relevant information that come from their

user-driven “explorations,” while making detours around

superfluous electronic forms that are commercially-driven. In

order to trouble-shoot and successfully navigate their way

online, Internet audiences must be active users skilled in using

navigational tools embedded in the software and online sites to

find the information they are looking for.

As a component of media grammar literacy, visual literacy

theory has been used to encourage students to produce and

interpret visual messages. In Visual Messages: Integrating Imagery into

Instruction, Considine and Haley (1992) explain that like

traditional literacy, visual literacy embraces what might be

termed a reading and writing component (p. 15). Students can be

taught to recognize, read, recall, and comprehend visual

messages. Accordingly, students who understand the design and

composition of visual messages can better communicate through

visual means. With the rapid increase in student-designed home

pages and social networking sites, design elements converged

around Internet technology are becoming more necessary. By using

the components of visual literacy that have been applied to

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audio, moving images, and still graphics, students can better

think about and through the sound, images and multi-sensory

components of the Internet. Accordingly, students should be

encouraged to use learned cyber-grammar to produce audio-visual

messages online as well as interpret them, including

webpages/homepages, blogs, wikis, bulletin boards and social

networking sites.

Medium Literacy

Whereas content literacy includes an examination of the message

and content, media grammar literacy, or audio-visual literacy,

includes an understanding of the medium and the form. In terms

of the Internet, medium literacy would require students to examine

the variables previously described in a multiple literacies

model, and those extrapolated from sample medium variables. In

particular, Internet technology impacts: 1) the multi-sensory

types of information conveyed, as it conveys messages through

visual, aural, and textual means, 2) the uni/bi/multi-

directionality of the communication which is affected by Internet

postings, email correspondence between individuals, and chat-room

discussions between two or more people, and 3) the speed and

degree of immediacy in encoding, dissemination, and decoding,

which are altered by the Internet’s instantaneous message

transmission and its ability to bring otherwise disjointed

individuals or groups together in non-face-to-face encounters.

One of the most important applications of medium theory would

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lead students to examine how message variables, both content and

visual, are uniquely acquired and represented online. Students

must learn to question whether the information they find is

unique to the Internet or is available through print and other

non-Internet resources. This inquiry leads students to understand

the potential of the Internet as a decentralized form of

technology, since it greatly increases the amount of information

and perspectives (both dominant and non-dominant) available on

any given topic. This presents creative opportunities for

students to find ideas and messages that infrequently unfold in

mainstream media. Moreover, through user-controlled hypertext or

hypermedia links, students can ‘interactively’ determine what

informational course they want to navigate. Educational prospects

such as these can only unfold in the critical thinking classroom

whereby students are encouraged to discover, compare and

contrast, and critique the messages communicated through computer

information technology.

In addition to exploring the decentralized nature of the

internet, students should also be encouraged to inquire into the

economic or political influences of Internet content in order to

question whether the ratio of useful information to superfluous

information is adequate. This includes evaluating the commercial

colonization of the medium by examining hyper-linked

advertisement banners, rollover and buttons, skyscraper ads found

in the margins, cyber-domains and branding, and the increasing

prevalence of adver-gaming.

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Issues concerning the fairness and equity of current

Internet structures and uses must also be part of the framework

for contemporary ICT medium literacy. While the Internet

originated as part of the United States’ military defense, it

continues to be controlled predominantly by U.S. corporations.

Expanding universal access to information remains a growing

global issue, while also affecting local, regional and national

institutions. Two main issues relevant to the infrastructure of

the Internet are equity and control. Currently, the U.S.-

dominated system requires developing nations and regions to pay

foreign domain-registering companies for the rights to register

and operate their national domains. Yet a growing number of

countries and organizations are demanding Internet structures and

bandwidths that provide space for politically and economically

weaker nations to have access in order to be heard and

represented in global debates within electronic cyber-

environments. They believe that “since the Internet is now a

global facility, its management should be multilateral,

transparent and democratic, involving governments, the private

sector, civil society groups and international organizations”

(Mutume, 2005). Additionally, there are concerns about ‘net

neutrality:’ the ability of online content providers to be

equally available and accessible to Internet users. The speed,

immediacy, access and costs of Internet-related content is being

compromised, as for-profit telecommunications firms seek to

increase their profit and control of the Internet at the cost of

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non-profit political organizing online. Such issues and debates

will continue to shape the control, design and function of the

Internet as a decentralized medium in the Twenty-First-Century.

Conclusion

Media literacy scholar Len Masterman’s (1985) explanation of

critical autonomy, to ‘develop in pupils enough self-confidence

and critical maturity to be able to apply critical judgments to

media texts which they will encounter in their future,’ (p. 24) as well as

to act upon their knowledge through social engagement should be

applied to new technologies, particularly the Internet where

today’s youth are engaged in social networking and obtaining

increasing amounts of information and entertainment. The need

for critical thinking must go hand-in-hand with a multi-literacy

approach toward media and technology so that students are

properly trained to better understand and participate in new and

emerging digital environments. This means going beyond

simplistic approaches centered on technology for technology’s

sake through technical skills training. Through multiple

literacies, students are provided with a learning model of

awareness, analysis, reflection, action, as it pertains to media

content literacy, media grammar literacy and medium literacy.

This combined approach can lead to better comprehension through

critical thinking and informed judgments. In order to keep pace

with the emergence on new computer-mediated communications

technology, educators and librarians will have to work together

24

to develop online media literacy initiatives so that students can

become discerners of the types of information they need. In

addition to content literacy or what is known as ‘information

literacy,’ the goals for taking media literacy to the Internet

must go beyond the critical evaluation and use of information to

include an analysis and understanding of the impact of political

and economic forces that drive and control much of the Internet.

Within a media literacy online model, the issues of ownership,

profit, control, commercialism, marketing, public relations,

branding, tracking, and related areas are essential to helping

students formulate constructive ideas for action that will impact

upon their own Internet choices and surfing habits (Frechette,

2002). Finally, students need to understand how the medium

alters communication and allows for non-dominant alternative

perspectives to emerge electronically. A multiple literacies

approach will not only allow students to become more cognizant

and savvy Internet users, but it will allow them to become

effective and responsible online media producers and global

citizens.

25

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