Evolving Thought on Information Literacy

Howard Rheingold’s work is representative of the evolution of thinking around and approach to information and technology literacy.  Critical innovations in technology, characterized particularly by the convergence  of  digitally-based communications (e.g. mobile technologies, social networks, distributed processing systems, and ubiquitous computing) have given rise to consideration among a number of traditionally invested constituencies (e.g. educators, librarians, information technologists), of what it means, or what is required, to be literate in the digital age.

Rheingold takes a vigorous stance regarding the validity of approaching education in ways that extend beyond emphasis on skills and technologies to the consideration of essential social media literacies.  As a staunch advocate for the advancement of fundamental twenty-first century literacies, Rheingold’s thinking is grounded in the belief that neither having access to technology, nor possessing the necessary digital skills to use the technology, is sufficient to thrive in a digitally networked society.  Moreover, Rheingold cautions against what he considers the myth of the so-called digital native, whose access to and prevalent use of social media, he contends, does not automatically endow an individual with the rhetorical acumen necessary to be considered literate. Rather, Rheingold asserts, the critical aspect of “community” in the digital age, i.e. the prominence of social media, requires consideration of what he identifies as five interrelated literacies – attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and critical consumption (or “crap detection”)^[1] – that must be developed in concert with one another to achieve required fluency.   “Ultimately, the most important fluency is not in mastering a particular literacy but in being able to put all five of these literacies together into a way of being in the digital culture.”  His theories are broadly addressed in his forthcoming book, Net smart: How to thrive online. 

It generally is established that information literacy is central to the educational role of academic libraries. The assertion that its traditional model should be reconsidered was made by James W. Marcum in an article published in The Library Quarterly in January 2002, entitled Rethinking Information Literacy.  Marcum also presented on the topic at the 2001 Educause National Conference.  Interestingly, Howard Rheingold engaged in similar future-casting, at around the same time as Marcum wrote his piece on information literacy, in his book Smart Mobs: The next social revolution.  Both referred to Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law to support their predictions of a communication revolution in the 21^st century in light of the rapid development of computing technology.

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[1] Rheingold adopted this terminology from an Ernest Hemingway (1954) quote, ““Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him.”

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