Toppling hierarchies? Media and information literacies, ethnicity, and performative media practices

Abstract

This article suggests how we should study media and information literacies (MIL) and do so at a time, when young people nurture these literacies through multiple media practices and across spaces of learning. Our basic argument is this: in order to gain a robust knowledge base for the development of MIL we need to study literacy practices beyond print literacy and numeracy, and we need to study these practices beyond formal spaces of learning. The argument is unfolded with particular focus on ethnic minority youth since this group routinely figures as under-achieving in studies of school literacy, such as Programme for International Student Assessment. Based on a brief overview of literacy studies in view of digitization and a critical examination of recent studies of youthful media practices and ethnicity, the argument is illustrated through an empirical analysis that draws on results from a nationally representative survey of media uses among Danes aged 13–23 years. The analysis demonstrates that ethnic minority youth offer the most serious challenge to existing literacy hierarchies found in formal education. We discuss the implications of these results for educational policy-making and for future research on MIL, advocating inclusive approaches in terms of media for learning and spaces of learning.

Keywords:

• content creation
• ethnicity
• learning
• media and information literacies
• media uses
• SNS
• social media communication

Acknowledgement

The authors thank DREAM colleagues for constructive discussions of earlier versions of the article.

Funding

This work was supported by The Danish Council for Strategic Research under grant number 2128–07–0031 and conducted as part of the research programme ‘Learning 2.0: Digital Literacies and Innovation’, 2009–2015 at the national research centre DREAM.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Christian Kobbernagel is Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies at Roskilde University. He has been working on young peoples' media uses with focus on digital content creation. He has a special interest in mixed methods and latent variable modelling techniques in effect studies of practices of communication and media use. His recent article about the use of Q methodology in research of types of student learning experiences in digital workshops was published in International Journal of Learning and Media.

Kirsten Drotner, Dr.Phil., is Chair of Media Studies at the University of Southern Denmark and founding director of DREAM (Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials). She has published widely on audiences, museum communication and media history, and her most recent book publication is Museum communication and social media: The connected museum (Routledge, 2013, co-editor Kim C. Schrøder). At DREAM, she is currently engaged with studies on creative knowledge production in semi-formal learning settings such as museums, science and experience centres.