Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is synonymous with the centrality of digital technologies in everyday life and, more specifically, its implications for learning and media participation. The term encompasses a large [Page 638]number of more traditional literacies (such as new literacy, television literacy, and computer literacy) and emerging concepts like social media literacy, multiple literacies, multimodal literacies, and more recently transmedia literacy. Although the term digital literacy has become popular over the last two decades, it is by no means new. On the contrary, it draws on a long-standing tradition of research in the field of critical media literacy. Paying specific attention to children and youth, this entry offers a preliminary definition of digital literacy and discusses how the concept of digital literacy continues to inform policy and ...