Silicon Literacies

Book excerpt: Electronic communication is radically altering literacy practices. Silicon Literacies unravels the key features of the new communication order to explore the social, cultural and educational impact of silicon literacy practices. Written by leading international scholars from a range of disciplines, the essays in this collection examine the implications of text produced on a keyboard, visible on a screen and transmitted through a global network of computers. The book covers topics as diverse as role-playing in computer games, the use of graphic symbols in on-screen texts and Internet degree programmes to reveal that being literate is to do with understanding how different modalities combine to create meaning. Recognizing that reading and writing are only part of what people have to learn to be literate, the contributors enhance our understanding of the ways in which the use of new technologies influence, shape and sometimes transform literacy practices.