Cyberliteracy
Navigating the Internet with Awareness
-Laura J. Gurak
Chapter 1
Cyberliteracy: Towards A New Internet Consciousness
The introductory section to Laura J. Gurak's book, Cyberliteracy explores the effect of communication technologies on society and culture. Gurak's central argument is, "how we view the world and how we live in it are being shaped by the features of these new technologies." Gurak goes on to speculate that what she refers to as 'cyberliteracy' is and will be in the future an important "awareness" to navigate the internet. The awareness that Gurak speaks of is, "that to be truly literate online, users must understand the economic and political forces that are shaping information technologies;" and further that the internet should be an active and engaging medium in the hands of the many voices that can control it and not a passive venue for commercialism, as other communicative technologies have become.
What I find the most interesting about this selection is Gurak's defintion of cyberliteracy, which "means voicing an opinion about what these technologies should be and being an active, not a passive, participant." To effect rather than to be effected. This is not an entirely novel concept, but I think that it points to a concern we should all share, and that is power. Who has it and who does not. The control of information as Gurak suggests relegates power. She urges the cyberliterate and illiterate to understand, become literate and knowledgable to the opportunity these technologies offter, that we have "to be more than a user."
James
1 comment:
I also think her ideas about being a "user" and being a "producer" are interesting, as is her emphasis on what constitutes cyberliteracy and how we should examine the Web's affects on cultural narratives. I also think it's interesting to speculate about the relationships between communications technologies and cultural identities, and I appreciate her emphasis on the fact that the "evolution" of the Internet isn't neutral but engineered by people with a lot of money.
Perhaps I'd be more satisfied if I read the entire book, but I didn't really get much of a sense of what she thought the affects on culture of the Web are. Did anyone else get this? She implied that they were awesome, but I didn't get it.
The chapter also reminded me how quickly material about the Internet (and a lot of scholarly research in the humanities) is dated. This 2001 publication seems to completely predate the blog explosion, which is doing exactly what early Web adopter thought that it would do: increase democratic participation. Her insistence that we shouldn't just be all laissez-faire about things is eerily similar to current calls to regulate the Web on a cash basis -- those huge corporations who want the speed of access to Web sites to be determined by how much the domain owner has paid. I'm a big proponent of Net Neutrality, and I wonder what Gurak would have to say about current conditions.
Her assertion that Web communications is affecting writing -- that textual and oral forms are combining, and that orality might re-emerge as a predominant cultural force in a post-Gutenberg world (and at this point in my writing I'm delayed by having to check the spelling of Gutenberg in the article. It seems very slow to scan the page -- perhaps I should have Googled the spelling?) -- intrigue me. Does this assertion in some way answer the question that this class is posing about digital writing as a genre of nonfiction writing? I think it might, or at least partially. It seems that one of the features that marks certain kinds of digital, nonfiction writing is a certain lack of formality, a certain reliance on orality as a feature of communication. Other thoughts?
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