Digital literacy is as essential for digital rhetoric as print literacy is for traditional writing. For example, someone with digital literacy would have no trouble understanding how to navigate the web to write blogs and create websites. Someone who is digitally literate can also identify when information is unreliable. (Kress 2003) suggests that “literacy” should refer to messages with letters, and a new term should be used for other forms of communication, like visual or musical literacy. I disagree with limiting the word literacy to “writing with letters” because it overlooks other multimodal aspects. Literacy is multimodal, and we do it no justice by restricting it to printed text only. Using modifiers to specify types of literacy, such as print-based literacy and digital literacy, helps clarify differences.
So Selfe and Hawisher argue that there are many kinds of literacy, not just in reading and writing, and I agree. They contend that digital and technological literacies are vital for functioning in the modern world because of how we communicate. The definition of 21st-century literacies introduces a multiliteracies approach that “situates literate practice as more than just skill-based.” As technology evolved, so did the meaning of literacy. It no longer simply meant understanding; it now includes skills like reading online articles and participating in online conversations. People need multiple literacies beyond basic functional skills. For example, computer literacy, such as using email or Word, is considered a basic functional computer skill. In contrast, digital literacy involves recognizing clickbait and knowing how to edit a video. Although these skills often overlap, I see them as steps that build on each other, making a person multiliterate.
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