The Evolving Definition: Literacy in a Digital World Analysis

This essay delves into the concept of literacy in the digital world, highlighting how the term has evolved with the advent of the internet and digital technologies. It emphasizes that digital literacy encompasses the ability to make sense of digital media through sustainable and meaningful consumption, enhancing an individual's potential within a community. The essay outlines the four key principles of digital literacy: comprehension, interdependence, social factors, and curation, explaining how each contributes to a comprehensive understanding of digital media. Furthermore, it notes the importance of incorporating digital age technologies and literacies to promote higher-order thinking skills among students, enabling them to improve their construction of meaning and knowledge. Ultimately, the essay concludes that digital literacy is essential for modern individuals to fully comprehend and navigate the complexities of communication and information technology.

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Literacy in a digital world
The term “literacy” in this digital world has earned an added dimension. The meaning
of this term has developed more and more with each passing years. Today, the celebration of
International Literacy Day is on the theme of “literacy, in a digital world” and this reminds of
how this world has changed over time. This essay shall elaborate on discussing about what it
means by literacy in a digital world.
It is to note that the world of 21st century is no more analogous in nature. Rather, it
has become digitally beautiful. Today, almost every forms of content, be it audio or texts or
videos, are either already digitised or are about to get digitised. With the same, all these
contents are easily moved from one part of the world to other, within seconds and this is no
less than a revolution. All the credits go to internet and World Wide Web (WWW).
According to Buckingham, digital literacy is all about being able to make the sense of digital
media and this successfully takes places with sustainable and meaningful consumption of
patterns that enhance and improve the potential of a person to aid to an authentic community.
It further indicates the ability of analysing, prioritising and acting upon the countless number
of digital media that this 21st century people face on a regular basis.
There are a total of four principles of digital literacy and they are- comprehension,
social factors, interdependence and curation (Dwyer). Comprehension refers to the ability of
extracting the explicit and implicit ideas from media. Interdependence on the other hand,
refers to how a media form gets connected with the other forms ideally, potentially, literally
or metaphorically (DeLanda). Because of the abundance of media, it is very important that it
just not only co-exist but at the same time, supplement one another. Furthermore, social
factors are the principle that explains that sharing is not only a method of distribution or
personal identity but instead, it creates message of its own. Lastly, curation refers to the

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notion of speaking of storing the favoured content by means of platforms like pocket, pinterst
etc. in a method of “save to read later”. It is also to note that currently, the goal of almost
every teachers is promoting higher order thinking skills among the students and incorporating
the digital age technology and literacies are a way for the teachers to improve the
construction of meaning and knowledge of the students.
Hence, from the above analysis it is to state that literacy in this digital world is
another name for digital literacy. It seeks to define and describe the potential of the modern
individuals to fully comprehend without any doubt, with the help of communication and
information technology.

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Works Cited:
Buckingham, David. "Defining digital literacy-What do young people need to know about
digital media?." Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy 10.Jubileumsnummer (2015): 21-
35.
DeLanda, M. (2019). A new philosophy of society: Assemblage theory and social complexity.
Bloomsbury Publishing.
Dwyer, Bernadette. "Engaging all students in internet research and inquiry." The Reading
Teacher 69.4 (2016): 383-389.