Literacy

The Concept of Literacy

Most commentators are agreed that literacy means something more than “functional literacy” (i.e., the basic ability to read and write), although there is little agreement as to just what constitutes that something. Traditionally, it involved being well educated or knowledgeable or, to use more recent terminology, possessing large amounts of academic and cultural capital. Consequently, it has long been generally assumed that universal education is a prerequisite for the attainment of high levels of literacy in a society. However, some historians dispute this view, citing evidence that, in some countries, mass literacy was achieved before the introduction of universal schooling, implying that there is more than one route to literacy. Another view sees literacy as something composed not of neutral, technical, and universal elements but of competencies that are culturally and temporally specific to various social contexts (and their dominant groups), a view frequently adopted by ethnic and other minority groups. Recently, there has been a trend toward breaking down the concept into various “subliteracies”—such as print literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, computer (or e-) literacy, and information literacy—implying the acquisition of specific and not necessarily transferable competencies within each subdomain. In his comprehensive treatment of the interaction between media, cognition, and learning, Gavriel Salomon saw the neuropsychological evidence that different symbolic modes of information are processed in different parts of the brain as pointing to the conclusion that different kinds of content are processed by different cognitive systems, with varying amounts of mental translation involved. Thus, he argued, although watching TV may require less conscious effort than reading a book, TV viewing may facilitate learning for those who experience difficulty with print modes, albeit learning of a different kind. By extrapolation, this view has led some observers to suggest that electronic digital developments may be taking us toward entirely new forms of literacy that will be unlike any current forms of literary practice.

Media and Literacy

There is a long-standing assumption that the invention of printing was primarily responsible for the development of literacy in the West and that other means of mass communication (such as TV and computers) must also, in one way or another, fundamentally affect it. However, some historians also question this assumption, arguing that levels of literacy were already rising in Europe before printing was invented and that the resulting demand for texts provided the impetus for printing rather than vice versa. Others see industrialization, rather than printing, as the primary motor driving the growth in literacy. If these (disputed) claims are correct, the whole traditionally assumed causal link between different forms of media and different forms of literacy is called into question.

Prevalent Theoretical Perspectives

Nevertheless, an extensive body of research has explored the relationship between media and literacy. Building on the extensive overview of the subject by Susan Neuman, four major theoretical assumptions underlying research into the effects of media on literacy and educational achievement may be discerned. Three of them are negative: displacement theory (that media take time away from reading and schoolwork), information processing theory (that reading-based activities activate the mind, whereas activities such as TV viewing are mentally pacifying), and short-term gratification theory (that media have radically changed children's expectations with regard to learning by stimulating the demand for constant novelty, pace, and stimulation). The fourth theoretical assumption is positive: interest stimulation theory (that media can enhance learning by stimulating interests). The positive potential of TV was underlined by Patricia Greenberg, who argued that TV is an intrinsically democratic medium that can make learning available to groups of children who fare less well in traditional educational situations. Conversely, in a number of polemical attacks in the 1980s, Neil Postman accused the media in general, and television in particular, of destroying print literacy as well as other aspects of academic and cultural accomplishment.

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