#NetHui and Digital Literacy

At last week's excellent NetHui, run by Internet NZ, I was asked to plug in 5 minutes worth on Digital Literacy. As usual, I tried to give it a bit of a spin. (starts at 41.12 and runs 6 minutes - the cut [poor sync] is Download Nethui_digital-literacy)

Here's the full version that probably takes a bit more than 5 minutes.

As one of the other presenters suggested, Digital Literacy means different things to different people and I want to pick up on some points raised by Mike Dickison and maybe be push them out a little, perhaps just shove them off the cliff.

For me digital literacy includes knowing when to take one of these and stick it in your mouth.

The reason for this is simple; in Miami Beach on Memorial Day this year, a bunch of out-of-control cops pumped over 100 shots into a private car in a public place, killing an unarmed black man inside (now there's a surprise) and wounded some bystanders.

A young man called Narces Benoit saw what was happening and whipped out his cellphone to record the scene. One of the cops noticed what he was doing, broke off his shooting gallery duties and came charging at Benoit, waving his gun and screaming at him to get out of his car and hand over the cellphone, which he did.

The cop them smashed the cellphone under his boot and arrested Benoit. Nevertheless, within a few hours, the video of the event was going viral on Youtube because, when he saw the cop rushing at him, Benoit had the presence of mind to take out of the phone his digital media storage card and put it in his mouth.

The difference between Benoit and the cop is what I call Digital Literacy.

A few months ago in the Australian Navy, a female recruit was having a sexual relationship with another recruit. The guy in question thought it would be terribly cool to capture the "action" with his webcam and broadcast it to his mates. She was not happy and complained to her commander about the breach of trust and privacy. He essentially told her not to be a spoilsport and swept the matter under the rug.

The young woman became even less happy and shared her experience on facebook. Within days her commander and his boss and his boss and HIS boss were all publicly on the mat, caps in hand, staring at their shoes and explaining HOW they were going to solve the problem of their appalling leadership.

The difference between the young woman and the Australian Navy is what I call Digital Literacy.

About the same time, footballer Ryan Giggs was having an affair with model Imogen Thomas and when it was discovered he sought the help of the UK Supreme Court which obligingly issued a "super injunction" forbidding the publication of the facts.

Within hours, over 70,000 Twitter users had turned the super injunction into a legal fiction.

The difference between the Supreme Court and Ryan Giggs fan base is what I call Digital Literacy.

And all over the Middle east and North Africa this year, people have risen up, trying to throw off a generation of oppression, corruption and violence against them. Now we have had revolutions for a long time, but in the past they have needed a core of intellectual, philosophical and operational leadership, surrounded by a cadre of activists willing to take the message into the community.

Those roles are now being taken over by the whole community using social media tools. It is that takeover and the loss of the privileged position of leadership that I call Digital Literacy.

In Christchurch's major earthquakes, at risk of their lives and while their buildings and their city crumbled around them people grabbed their cellphones and videoed the event as a way to record their own experience to share with others and possibly to provide evidence of what happened to them if they didn't make it out.

That too I call Digital Literacy.

Literacy of any kind is not just being able to read and write the words, it is understanding the meaning, the significance and the context of the communication, then knowing how to manipulate them.

The best example I can think of is the advent of film to entertainment. The first films were little more than stage plays with a camera placed in front of them to record the action. But it wasn't long before we saw the appearance of film literacy, using the unique language of the cinema to tell the story in its own way. The language includes backgorund music, closeups, tracking and pan shots, framing and the million other ways to use a camera that are not available to stage plays.

So we cannot expect that Digital Literacy will look in any but the most superficial ways, like hard copy literacy. In fact, by my definition Digital Literacy is happening all around us, all the time, with increasing frequency.

For 20 years we have talked about the ICT Revolution, blithely ignoring the fact that all revolutions break stuff, and the thing they break first and most irreparably, is the status quo, to expect the revolutionaries to restore the powers of the old guard is nonsense.

Digital Literacy does not consist in being able to write a CV in a word processor nor manage our accounts with a spreadsheet, they are far too often, a way for the old guard to try and force the revolution into a mould with which they feel comfortable.

Our problem is that digital illiteracy is rife in Government, business, education, health, justice and the NFP sectior, very often among those who are pushing hardest for solutions.

The real digital literacy challenge that we have is to shift the old guard into actual digital literacy so that our organisations, which have real, and vital, work to do, can engage with, communicate with, work with an increasingly digitally literate community; so that they can swim in that literacy instead of drowning in it as they are doing right now.

MY problem is that I   have no idea how the hell we are going to do that.

Digital Literacy does not consist in being able to write a CV in a word processor nor manage our accounts with a spreadsheet, they are far too oftten, a way for the old guard to try and force the revolution into a mould with which they feel comfortable.

Comments

[Taka]

>>> MY problem is that I have no idea how the hell we are going to do that

Is it even possible? As you suggested, digital literacy isn't simply about being able to use the technology, it's about having a deeper understanding of how it works and how it can be used, and the ability to incorporate it into the way we operate. Past a certain age, most people simply can't change all that much, which is why these kinds of shift take time to happen - you have to wait for the old guard to (literally) die off :-)

[Earl Mardle]

Taka. I don't know if its possible but I'm pretty sure that things are changing too fast to leave the (sometime) dead hands on the tillers.

Its one of my well used lines that we can't just wait for all these people to die off. We are, after all, talking about the boomers who now hold too much power at just the moment when their (our) time has gone.

In part I want us to be smart enough to get it and at least get out of the way because I really don't want to be caught in some great sweeping out of the boomer stables.

[Taka]

>>> I'm pretty sure that things are changing too fast to leave the (sometime) dead hands on the tillers.

The rate of change is accelerating - it'll be interesting when it becomes too fast for anyone to keep up :-)

>>> We are, after all, talking about the boomers who now hold too much power at just the moment when their (our) time has gone.

Yah, but it's always the case that the oldies cling to power after their time has passed. Most of your examples demonstrate the little people using their understanding of technology to prevail over those in power. Boomers might hold the titles and positions of power but their lack of understanding will doom them to irrelevance and impotence. The danger we face now is the reach of their influence - once upon a time, problems were localised but now, stuff-ups are bigger and affect every part of the globe.

>>> In part I want us to be smart enough to get it and at least get out of the way because I really don't want to be caught in some great sweeping out of the boomer stables.

IIRC, I was always much more pessimistic than you, especially when it comes to expectations of people. Anyone hoping for us to be smart enough to do anything more than get out of bed in the morning is undoubtably going to be disappointed :-/ Me, I'm just trying to carve out a little space somewhere for myself, out of the path of the imminent Great Sweeping :-)

[Earl Mardle]

You and me both carving a little place mate. I never saw you as a pessimist; anyone prepared to take the kinds of risks you get into, (Sax - with an A - in Bangkok for example) launching Awasu etc, looks like an optimist to me.

But we agree on expectations of smarts in general. And the further up the tree we go, the fewer smarts we find. OK, back to the garden.

[Floydwilde]

The scary thing that occurs to me considering the digital literacy of Narces Benoit vs. the Miami Beach cops, is that if the cop had been digitally literate, he would have simply checked the phone for the sd card, and may have frisked it off Narces had he been smart enough. In which case Narces may have had the smarts to switch the cards out with another, we would hope. (note to self: always carry extra sd card in case of witnessing policy brutality)

Anyway, my feeling is that we can do something about improving digital literacy. There is not silver bullet solution, no more than there is for any other social problem.

Part of the solution in my mind, is having community technology centres and supporting these spaces with other resources. So I am starting to work on mapping community technology resources in New Zealand. I'm working on this here:

http://wiki.digilit.org.nz

Would appreciate any feedback.

[Rob Lindstrom]

As I think Earl you said in an earlier post, there is no one in control of the digital revolution (that term is starting to sound so quaint) and that seems to me the whole point about what to do or not do about digital illiteracy.

In the Digital Age control is an illusion, a remnant of earlier times. (Actually, it was always an illusion, but it used to seem much more real.)

In place of control we have influence, which is real and is growing and broadening exponentially. The thing about influence is you cannot wield it to achieve preconceived ends. It's dynamic, variable and ongoing.

In this reality it matters greatly whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, hopeful or cynical, because when it comes to influence, attitude is everything. What you feel is what you get.

Earl, I enjoyed the video clip. We obviously share perspectives. My take on your NetHui rant is posted at http://www.literacy20.com