DEPARTMENT OF

TEACHER
EDUCATION
Brgy. Binongtoan Alangalang, Leyte
Telephone: 525-0344 local 1098
Email: alangalang@vsu.edu.ph
Website: www.vsu.edu.ph

Lesson 3.1: Digital Literacy

Lesson Summary
Of all the 21st century literacies that were discussed on the previous
modules, none of them embodies the “newness” of these literacies quite like
those needed to make sense of the absolute deluge of information brought to us
by the Internet. In this module, you will be exploring how the so-called old
literacies is still an essential tool in the new context you find yourself today.
Moreover, you will be discovering the relationship between media literacy and
digital literacy.

Learning Outcomes
1. To develop a working understanding on how is media literacy relates
digital literacy.
2. To state the importance of developing media and digital literacy both in
students and on one another in the information age.
3. To realize the importance of the practical steps that must be taken to
develop these literacies early in children.

Discussion

Media Literacy
There are several ways in defining media literacy. One definition states
that media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate
messages is a wide variety of forms (Aufderheide, 1993). Another definition
states that it is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messgaes
across a variety of contexts (Christ and Potter, 1998). According to Hobbs
(1998) the term media literacy is a term used by scholars in referring to the
process of critically analyzing and learning to create one’s own messages in
print, audio, video, and multimedia.
In other words, media literacy can thus be defined as “the ability to
identify different types of media and understand the messages they are
communicating” (Common Sense Media, n.d.). The exact types of media varies
from television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, handouts, to flyers and
many more. However varied these types of media are, they all have a common
factor and that is they were all created by someone, and that someone had a
reason for creating them.
Boyd (2014) stated that media literacy education has began in the United
States and United Kingdom as a direct result of the war propaganda in the 1930s
and the rise of advertising in the 1960s. In both of these cases, media was being
used to manipulate the perspective and as well as the subsequent actions of those
exposed to it, in so doing so giving rise to the need to educate people on how to
detect the biases, falsehoods, and half-truths depicted in print, radio, and
television.
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 The absolute heart of media literacy today is to be able to understand the
why behind media communication especially that media communication today
easily lends itself and so well to the purpose of manipulating the perception of
the consumers on both political and commercial issues.
It was reported that “at the 1993 Media Literacy National Leadership
Conference, US Educators could not agree on the range of appropriate goals for
media education or the scope of appropriate instructional techniques”
(Aufderheide, 1993 and Hobbs 1998). Despite this, the conference did identify
five essential concepts necessary fro any analysis of media messages:
1. Media messages are constructed.
2. Media messagesare produced within economic, social, political,
Historical, and aesthetic contexts.
3. The interpretative meaning-making processes involved in message
reception consist of an interaction between the reader, the text, and
the culture.
4. Media has unique “languages,” characteristics which typify various
forms, genres, and symbol systems of communication.
5. Media Representations play role in people’s understanding of social
reality.
The five concepts enumerated previously boil down to while the
producer of a particular media has an intended meaning behind the
communication, what actually gets communicated to the consumers depends
not only on the media itself but as well as the consumers themselves and on
their respective cultures. The perceived meaning of the consumer is what then
develops into how people understand social reality.
An immediate example of this is the media portrayal of Mindanao.
Because of the limited good news coming from the island of Mindanao is
communicated by the news networks, the average Filipino–who might never
have been to Mindanao–comes to believe that the entire island is involved in
armed conflict, that anyone from Mindanao is somehow involved in the conflict,
and therefore understandably refuses to go there, nor allow any of his or her
relatives to do so. It is unlikely that this was the news media’s intention, but it
is the viewer’s interpretation that ultimately determined his or her beliefs and
behavior.
What Media Literacy in Not
Given the broad and somewhat vague nature of media literacy, its
implied definition can be gathered by understanding what media literacy is not.
The following list of actions that are often mistaken for being representative of
media literacy (Center for Media Literacy, n.d.):
• Criticizing the media is not, in and of itself, media literacy. However,
being media literate someti es requires that one indeed criticize what one
sees and hears.
• Merely producing media is not media literacy although part of being
media literate is the ability to produce media.
 • Teaching with media (videos, presentations, etc.) does not equal media
literacy. An education in media literacy must also include teaching
about media.
• Viewing media and analyzing it from a single perspective is not media
literacy. True media literacy requires both the ability and willingness to
view and analyze media from multiple positions and perespectives.
• Media literacy does not simply mean knowing what and what not to
watch; it does mean “watch carefully, think critically.”
Challenges to Media Literacy Education
One glaring challenges to teaching Media Literacy is, “how do we teach
it?” According to Koltay (2011), teaching is it as a subject in itself might not be
feasible given how overburdened the curriculum is at the moment, while
integrating it into the subjects that are currently being taught might not be
enough to teah teach what are essentially media consumption habits – skills and
attitudes that re learned by doing and repetition rather than by just classroom
discussion.
Livingstone and Van Der Graaf (2010) identified “how to measure
media literacy and evaluate the success of media literacy initiatives” as being
one of the more pernicious challenges facing educators in the 21 st century, for
the simple reason that if we cannot somehow measure the presence of media
literacy in our students, how do we know we have actually taught them?
Finally, a more fundamental challenge to Media Literacy education is
one of purpose. As Chris & Potter (1998) put it, “is media literacy best
understood as a means of inoculating children against the potential harms of the
media or as a means of enhancing their appreciation of the literacy merits of the
media?”
Digital Literacy
Digital literacy, which is also called e-literacy, cyber literacy, and even
information literacy by some authors, is no different with how literacy is viewed
as reading a text with understanding and that there are many kinds of texts, and
each one requires a specific set of skills to understand and make meaning out of
them. The only difference is that, in digital literacy, “text” can actually be
images, sound, video, music, or a combination thereof.
According to Eshet-Alkalai (2004), digital literacy can be defined as the
ability to locate, evaluate, create, and communicate information on various
digital platforms. To put is more broadly, it is the technical, cognitive, and
sociological skills needed to perform tasks and solve problems in digital
environments. The skills and competencies listed below which will help in the
promotion of computer literacy should sound familiar to the readers today
(Shapiro & Hughes, 1996):
• tool literacy – competence in using hardware and software tools;
• resourse literacy – understanding forms of and access to information
resources;
• social-structural literacy – understanding the production and social
significance of information;
• publishing literacy – ability to communicate and publish information;
 • emerging technologies literacy – understanding of the new
developments in IT; and
• critical literacy – ability to evaluate the benefits of new technologies
(take not that this literacy is not the same as “critical thinking,” which is
often regarded as a component of information literacy).
As what you might probably noticed, digital literacy shares a great deal
of overlap with media literacy; in fact digital literacy can be seen as a subset of
media literacy, dealing particularly with media in digital form. So, how are these
two literacies connected? It is fairly obvious – if media literacy is the “ability to
identify different types of media and understand the messages they are
communicating,” then digital literacy can be seen as “media literacy applied to
the digital media,” although with a few adjustments.
The term “digital literacy” is not new; Lanham (1995), in one of the
earliest examples of a functional definition of the term described the “digitally
literate person” as being skilled at deciphering and understanding the meanings
of images, sounds, and the subtle uses of words so that he/she could match the
medium of communication to the kind of information being presented and to
whom the intended audience is. Two years later, Paul Gilster (1997) formally
defined digital literacy as “the ability to understand and use information in
multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via
computers,” explaining that not only must a person acquire the skill of finding
things, he/she must also acquire the ability to use these things in life.
Badwen (2008) collated the skils and competencies comprising digital
literacy from contemporary scholars on the matter into four groups:
1. Underpinnings – This refers to those skills and competencies that
“support” or “enable” everything else within digital literacy,
namely: traditional literacy and computer/ICT literacy (i.e., the
ability to use computers in everyday life.
2. Background Knowledge – This largely refers to knowing where
information on a particular subject or topic can be found, how
information is kept, an how it is disseminated – a skill taken for
granted back in the day when information almost exclusively resided
in the form of printed text.
3. Central Competencies – These are the skills and competencies that
a majority of scholars agree on as being care to digital literacy today,
namely;
• Reading and understanding digital and non-digital formats;
• Creating and communicating digital information;
• Evaluation of information;
• Knowledge assembly;
• Information literacy; and
• Media literacy.
4. Attitudes and Perspectives – Bawdem (2008) suggests that it is
these attitudes and perspectives that link digital literacy today with
traditional literacy, saying “it is not enough to have skills and
competencies, they must be grounded in some moral framework,”
specifically:
 • Independent learning – the initiative and ability to learn
whatever is needed for a person’s specific situation; and
• Moral/social literacy – an understanding of correct,
acceptable, and sensible behavior in a digital environment.
Information Literacy within Digital Literacy
Given the ease with which digital media (as opposed to traditional print
media) can be eduted and manipulated the ability to approach it with a healthy
amount of skepticism has became a “survival skill” fro media consumers. Eshet-
Alkalai (2004) draws attention to information literacy as a critical component
of Digital Literacy as “the cognitive skills that consumers use to evaluate
information in an educated and effective manner.” In effect, Information
Literacy acts as a filter by which consumers evaluate the veracity of the
information being presented to them via digital media and thereupon sort the
erroneous, irrelevant, and biased from what is demonstrably factual.
From this perspective, part of the efforts of Digital Literacy Education
should be toward developing media consumers who think critically and are
ready to doubt the quality of the information they receive even if said
information comes from so-called “authoritative sources.” However, a majority
of studies on Information Literacy seem to concentrate more on the ability to
search for information rather than its cognitive and pedagogical aspects (Eshet-
Alkalai, 2004; Zinns, 2000; Burnett & McKinley, 1998).
Socio-Emotional Literacy within Digital Literacy
Alongside Information Literacy, Eshet-Alkalai (2004) high;ights a kind
of Socio-Emotional literacy needed to navigate the Internet, raising questions
such as, “How do I know if another user in a chatroom is who he says he is?”
or “How do I know if a call for blood donations on the Internet is real or hoax?”
Such questions should make us realize that there are no hard and fast
rules for determining the answers. Instead, there is a necessary familiarity with
the unwritten rules of Cyberspace; an understanding that while the Internet is a
global village of sorts, it is also a global jungle of human communication,
embracing everything from truth to falsehoods, honesty and deceit, and
ultimately, good and evil. According Eshet-Alkalai (2004), this Socio-
Emotional literacy requires users to be “very critical, analytical, and mature” –
implying a kind of richness of experience that the literate transfers from real life
to their dealings online. Curiosly, while research shows that the older a user is,
the less likely they are to behave naively online, this does not exempt them from
the 100 million dollars in gold bullion to them in exchange for their bank details,
but they might be willing to believe that someone really is giving away 1000
units of the latest smartphone in exchange for their contact information.
Digitally literate users know how to avoid the “traps” of cyberspace
mainly because they are familiar with the social and emotional patterns of
working in cyberspace – that it is really just an outworking of human nature.
Digital Natives
The term digital natives something of a buzzword in the education sector
over the past decade. This was popularized by Prensky (2001) in reference to
the generation that was born during the information age (as opposed to digital
immigrants–the generation prior that acquired familiarity with digital systems
only as adults) and who has not known a world without computers, the Internet,
and connectivity.
Despite the fact that Prensky’s original paper was not an academic one
and has no empirical evidence to support its claims, educators and parents alike
latched onto the term, spawning a school of thought wherein the decline or
modern education is explained by educators’ lack of understanding of how
digital natives learn and make decisions.
However, a popular misconception borne of the term digital natives and
the educational ideas is spawned is that the generation in question is born
digitally literate. If this is the case then the question, “How can digital
immigrants teach digital natives a literacy they already have?” is a valid one, to
which the answer would be, correctly, “they cannot.”
But the problem is that “digitally literate” is popularly defined as the
ability to use computers or use the Internet, which as we have seen earlier, forms
only one part of the crucial skills and competencies required to be digitally
literate. Our expanded view of the term “literate” allows us to see that while
digital natives in our classrooms are most certainly familiar with digital
systems–perhaps even more so than their instructors–this does not mean they
automatically know how to read, write, process, and communicate information
on these systems in ways that are both meaningful and ethical, especially when
the information involved does not involve technology’s most common use:
personal entertainment. That is to say, when to ask at hand does not involve
what the digital natives consider to be entertainment, the gaps in their literacy
begin to show.
A good example of this is the difficulty many Senior High School
instructors have in teaching research: Students who are otherwise quite familiar
with using the Internet for entertainment are suddenly at a loss in locating,
accessing, and understanding information from research journals and websites,
mainly because they are looking for infroamtion on topics they are either
unfamiliar with, uninterested in, or both.
Another problem concerning digital natives is the misconception that
everyone belonging to the generation is on more or less equal fooling in regard
to digital literacy. Although the drawing of such conclusion is understandable
(given the near-ubiquity of digital technology and the Internet), it is nonetheless
mistaken, as no one is truly “born digital.” Instead, the determining factor is
access to education and experience: children born to poorer families will
naturally seem less digitally literate for lack of access to technology and an
education in said technologies, while those born to priviledged families will
display more of the literacies discussed earlier.
Challenges to Digital Literacy Education
Digital literacy education shares many of the challenges to Media
Literacy for example: How should it be taught? How can it be measured and
evaluated? Should it be taught for the protection of students in their
consumption of information or should it be to develop their appreciation fro
digital media?
Brown (2017) also noted that despite the global acknowledgement that
Digital Literacy education is a need, there is as of yet no overarching model or
framework for addressing all of the skills deemed necessary. Put simply, there
is no single and comprehensive plan anywhere for teaching digital literacy the
way it should be taught. Accordingly, he asked, “What assumptions, theories,
and research evidence underpin specific frameworks? Whose interests are being
served when particular frameworks are being promoted? Beyon efforts to
produce flashy and visually attractive models how might we reimagine digital
literaciesto promote critical mindsets and active citizenry in order to reshape
our socities fro new ways of living, learning, and working for a better future–
for all?”
Despite the challenges posed by the board and fluid nature of media (and
therefore digital) literacy, educators in the Philippines can spearhead literacy
efforts by doubling-down on those concepts and principles of Media Literacy
that are of utmost importance, namely, critical thinking and the grounding of
critical thought in a moral framework.
• Teach media and digital literacy integrally. Any attempt to teach
these principles must first realize that they cannot be separated from
context–meaning, they cannot be taught separately form other topics.
Critical Thinking requires something other than itself to think critically
about, and thus cannot develop in a vacuum. Similarly, developing a
moral framework within students cannot be taught via merely talking
about it. This moral framework develops by practicing it, that is, basing
our decisions on it, in the context of everything else we do in our day-
today lives. We therefore, agree with Koltay (2011) that the teaching of
the fundamental principles of these and other literacies should be done
integratively with others subjects in school, however, difficult the
process might be. In other words, teach them in mathematics, sciences,
language arts, social studies, and so on. Make them part of the school
curriculum and in the everyday life of the students. Anything else will
be misguided as merely telling a plant grow and expecting it to do so
by the power of your words.
• Master your subject matter. Whatever it is you teach, you must not
only possess a thorough understanding of your subject matter, you must
also understand why you are teaching it, and why it is important to learn.
As educators, we must not shy away from a student genuinely asking us
to explain why something we are teaching is important. After all,
teaching is in itself a kind of media the students are obliged to consume;
it is only fair they know why.
• Think “multi-discplinary.” How can educators integrate media and
digital literacy in a subject as abstract as Mathematics, for example? the
answer lies in stepping out of the “pure mathematics” mindset and
embracing communication as being just as important to math as
computation. Once communication is accepted as important, this opens-
up new venues where the new literacies can be excercised. For example,
have students create a webpage detailing what systems of linear
equations are, why are they important, and the techniques for solving
them. Alternatively, they can create potser inforgraphics that explain the
same things. The exact same strategies can be applied to nearly any
subject and any topic. It is a matter of believing, as educators, that how
we communicate is as important as what we communicate.
• Explore motivations, not just messages. While it is very important that
students learn what is the message being communicated by any media
text, it is also important to develop in them a habit fro asking why is the
message being communicated in the first place. In the case of an
information phamplet warning against some infectious disease for
example, is there an outbreak we are being warned of? If not, cpuld this
then be an attempt to sow panic and discord in the target populace?
Why? Who stands to gain from doing such things? The objective here is
not so much to find the correct answers, but rather to develop the habit
of asking these questions.
• Leverage skills that students already have. It is surprising how much
a person can do when they are personally and affectively motivated to
do so–in other words, a person can do amazing things when they really
want to. Students can produce remarkably well-researched output fro
things they are deeply interested in, even without instruction.
Harnessing this natural desire to explore whatever interests them will go
a long way in improving media and digital literacy education in your
classroom.