Communicative competence in the information age: Towards a critical theory of information literacy education

Abstract

Insights developed from critical social science, particularly the work of Jürgen Habermas, are used to analyse the development of information literacy as a subject and its contemporary definitions. The challenges facing information literacy educators are located in potential contradictions between the subject’s strategic, technical elements and its more critical, communicative and social aspects. The critical potential of information literacy can also suggest why it is politically sensitive, and may struggle to attract status and funding.

Keywords:

• critical pedagogy
• information society
• data smog
• Habermas and societal learning

Biography

Andrew Whitworth is Programme Director for the MEd: ICT in Education at the School of Education, University of Manchester. His research stands at the intersection of information technology, education and critical theory.

Notes

¹ Quote by a project manager (Zeller, 2005: 2).

² original quote: Nevison, 1976: 401

³ This list was originally bulleted. I have included the numbers to facilitate later cross-reference using the symbol §. The numbers may imply a sequence; as will be explained, this is a partially, but not completely, valid interpretation of the original order in which they were presented.

⁴ for a discussion on the functioning of social spaces see Blaug, 1999

⁵ see Kemp’s 1985 discussion of the UK public inquiry system, for example

⁶ This concept offers an improvement over Habermas’s earlier model of the “public sphere”. For a more detailed exploration why this is the case see Habermas (1984, 1987, 1989).