Literacy at Risk: The Internet is the Bad Place.

Literacy: Our Understanding at Stake 

My brain is finally breaking. The internet is the bad place. Unlike traditional print literacy, which focuses on linear and stable text, digital literacy demands an understanding of how meaning shifts across platforms. By making text, interactive, modular, algorithmically curated and database-driven, new media now requires readers and writers to develop new skills in navigation, critical engagement and source evaluation. Literacy education must adapt to help users become critical thinkers.  

The Collapse of Author and Reader 

Richard Lanham argues that the electronic word is “unfixed” and interactive, this means that digital literacy requires the ability to engage with texts that are constantly evolving. Unlike traditional media, digital texts are fluid and editable. This allows readers to become writers who modify, comment and reshape content in real-time. This ultimately affects the ability to understand revision history and media ethics. Without digital literacy, the impact of authority and permanence of written content helps in the decline of critical engagement. 

Literacy Beyond Text 

A webpage consists of separate graphics, embedded videos, hyperlinks and text elements. According to Lev Manovich, these elements are all illusory. The author creates these elements with the intent to persuade the reader through rhetoric. In digital spaces, learning is no longer just about reading and writing text. This shift requires readers and writers of digital text to think beyond words. Meaning is constructed through images, video, audio and interactive elements. To enhance persuasion, clarity and engagement, new rhetorical strategies are used.

Digital Spaces: Navigating Literacy 

The internet is not as advanced and healthy for learning as we all hope it to be. Digital literacy must account for the performative nature of media discourse, remediation, database accumulation, and filter bubbles. It is critical that digital learning requires acute awareness when assessing content.  

I say all this to ask myself the burning question… Why do I still want a blog?