Composing in the 21 st Century: Digital and Visual Literacy

1. Composing in the 21st Century: Digital and Visual Literacy Dan O’Leary and Cassie Bottieri ENG 565: Composition Theory Week 9

2. Literacies and the Complexities of the Global Digital Divide by Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher The global digital divide is very real: • 94% of Internet users live in the richest 40 countries • 30% of Internet users have a university degree • Monthly internet charges are only 1.2 % of monthly income for a U.S. user, but 614% for those in Madagacar, 278% in Nepal, and 60% in Sri Lanka • The world average for the number of people to computers with internet access is 15 to 1. In North America and Europe, the number is only 2 to 1.

3. Literacies and the Complexities of the Global Digital Divide by Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher Two case studies: DipoLashore and Pengfei Song • Dipo came from civil-war strucken Nigeria. His family lived in the city of Lagos, and had access to emerging technologies. • Dipo’s family members had access to and used computer based technologies. “My entire family liked using computers; my brothers…do their architectural assignments as well as some other engineering homework.” (1506) • He believes digital literacy poses its own set of challenges, but learning computers helped his command of the English language.

4. Literacies and the Complexities of the Global Digital Divide by Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher • Pengfei was born in China into a less than affluent family. • Pengfei began to learn English at a young age and won prizes for his essays in English. • His first experiences with computers were during his 1st year at a Chinese university. • Believes computers are becoming more important to his country’s economy: “If you do not know how to use a computer, you are considered almost illiterate and will lose lots of working opportunities.” (1516)

5. Literacies and the Complexities of the Global Digital Divide by Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher Conclusions drawn by Selfe and Hawisher: • Personal narratives such as these are necessary to understand the digital divide; statistics alone will not do. • Geography and location factor largely into the digital divide. • Wealth and circumstance also play large roles. • As do personal education and basic computer skills. • Personal agency shapes and is shaped by the “cultural ecology” • The digital divide will be better understood when we accept the above 5 as an interdependent “constellation” of variables.

6. Negotiation of Power and Identity in a Japanese Online Discourse Community by Paul Matsuda • Issues of power and identity in online discourse has been English centric. “Conclusions drawn from one language may not be applicable to other languages.” (1584) • English dominates as an online language partly because of software compatibility: English characters only need 7 of 8 bits to a byte, but other languages have characters that need a full 8 to 16 bits to be represented graphically. Only since 2000 have PC’s had built-in multi-lingual capacities.

7. Negotiation of Power and Identity in a Japanese Online Discourse Community by Paul Matsuda • Matsuda uses as data a series of email exchanges between Japanese TESOL members. • Distinguishes between vertical and horizontal relationships: vertical ones emphasize rank, seniority, or social status. Horizontal ones emphasize knowledge, skills, or experience. • Formal features of the Japanese language reflect and shape vertical relations: “verb endings, address terms, and honorifics.” (1589) • The TESOL Link emails showed a breakdown of vertical relationships, especially since writers weren’t always aware of who they were writing to in terms of social standing, age, seniority, etc.

8. Negotiation of Power and Identity in a Japanese Online Discourse Community by Paul Matsuda • Most members of TESOL Link did not use honorifics or formal verb endings. They created horizontal relationships where power became synonymous with skills and knowledge, not rank or seniority. • Even incidental uses of honorifics reflected the formality of the message or situation, not necessarily a vertical relationship. • “TESOL Link members felt the need to re-establish their social relations, suggesting they intuitively sensed different social dynamics at work in this online discourse community.” (1594)

9. Negotiation of Power and Identity in a Japanese Online Discourse Community by Paul Matsuda • Matsuda argues that hierarchies still emerged however. • “TESOL Link, despite its seemingly egalitarian characteristics, did not necessarily afford its members a more egalitarian discourse community. Rather, it created an alternative system of hierarchy based primarily on knowledge rather than on seniority and social rank.” (1596) • “The findings of this study seem to point to a rather pessimistic conclusion that hierarchical relationship is inevitable even in online discourse.” (1597)

10. Negotiation of Power and Identity in a Japanese Online Discourse Community by Paul Matsuda • Further conclusion: more research and study on online discourse is needed, especially in other foreign languages, and along various critical viewpoints. • “To fully understand how identity and power relations are formed and negotiated, we must continue the examination of online discourse practices in various languages and from multiple theoretical and methodological lenses.” (1598)