Literacies Across Media

216 Pages·2007·1.03 MB·English

by  Margaret Mackey

Literacies Across Media
Young people today are learning about reading, viewing and interacting with
technology in times of rapid transformation. Literacies Across Media presents
a longitudinal study of sixteen children and adolescents, aged between 10 and
14, and explores their reactions to changing media technologies over a period of
eighteen months.
The study reported in this book, conducted just as the century turned and first
published in 2002, offers insights into the behaviours of articulate young people
asthey encounter a range of text formats, including novels, a picture book, video
and DVD, a CD-ROM picture book and a CD-ROM encyclopedia, computer
games, and an electronic book. This new edition:
• Re-visits many theoretical insights in terms of continuing developments in
technological uptake among young people
• Includes an afterword at the end of each chapter addressing historical and
national variations in media use
• Illustrates the conclusions about the significance of play with a new case study
of media change in particular local circumstances.
Literacies Across Mediahas much to offer to teachers, librarians and researchers,
in terms of developing a better understanding of how young people move between
books and other media, and how they approach new forms of technology. The book
will also appeal to professors and students of education and library and information
studies.
Margaret Mackeyis Professor at the School of Library and Information Studies,
University of Alberta, Canada.

Literacies Across Media
Playing the text
2nd Edition
Margaret Mackey
First published 2002 by Routledge
Second edition published 2007 by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library,2006.
“To purchaseyourown copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
©2002, 2007 Margaret Mackey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Mackey, Margaret.
Literacies across media : playing the text / Margaret Mackey. – 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Literacy–Social aspects. 2. Media literacy. 3. Technological literacy.
4. Children–Effect of technological innovations on. I. Title.
LC149.M226 2006
302.23–dc22 2006025815
ISBN 0-203-96460-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–40746–X (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–40747–8 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–96460–8 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–40746–5 (hbk)
ISBN10: 978–0–415–40747–2 (pbk)
ISBN10: 978–0–203–96460–6 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Acknowledgements for the second edition xi
Introduction to the second edition 1
1 Ecologies of literacy: introduction 3
Snapshots in close-up 3
Changing definitions 4
Reading embedded in daily life 5
Changing ecologies of literacy 7
An ecology of attention 9
Attention and the body 10
Work and play 13
Questions about literacies across media 13
The study 14
The findings 15
Conclusions 17
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 18
2 The study: a description and a framework 19
The project 19
The chronology of the project 21
The texts 22
The activities 24
The participants 25
The data 26
The data analysis 28
The theoretical and practical precedents 29
Conclusions 31
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 32
vi Contents
3 Janice 34
Ecologies in close-up 34
Janice 34
Janice’s media week 34
Janice and books 35
E-books and picture books 36
The Way Things Work:CD-ROMs versus books 37
Amedia ecology 37
Re-visiting texts 39
Communicating with computers 41
Heading for high school 43
The asset model 44
Conclusions 45
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 46
4 Jack 48
Jack 48
Jack’s media diary 48
Jack and computers 49
The role of partners 50
Jack’s choices 52
The textual world of Men in Black 54
The aesthetics of the e-book 56
Jack on the way to high school 58
An asset model 62
Conclusions 63
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 64
5 Layered textual identities: the diaries 66
Layers of text and textual identity 66
Daily fiction 67
A1997 snapshot 68
Five girls 69
Commonalities and divergences 71
Internet use 72
Signature responses 74
Social elements of personal tastes 76
Conclusions 78
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 79
Contents vii
6 Salience and fluency: the beginnings of stories 81
The fifteen text openings 81
The texts 81
Salience and fluency 83
Choosing among media 87
Text processing in a multimedia environment 88
Conclusions 92
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 93
7 ‘Remediation’: e-books and DVDs 95
‘Remediation’ 95
The electronic book 96
‘Remediating’ the book 97
The students’ responses to the e-book 99
Issues of transparency and opacity 101
‘Remediating’ the video 102
The students’ responses to the DVD 104
Changing the experience of film 106
Conclusions 107
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 108
8 Handling the text: picture books and CD-ROMs 110
Hands 110
Reading the picture book 113
‘The most thinking book’ 115
Hands at work 116
Bodies at work 118
The affect of hands together 119
Lulu’s Enchanted Book 120
Deictics and graphics 124
The Way Things Work 125
Handling the CD-ROM 127
Conclusions 128
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 130
9 Narrative strategies: playing Starship Titanic 132
Recording the game 132
Starship Titanic 132
Analysing the transcripts 133
Playing Starship Titanic 135
viii Contents
At play on the borders of the diegetic 138
‘Soft mastery’ 142
Conclusions 145
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 146
10 The complexity of deixis: reading ‘Tunnel’ 148
The double deictic of writing and reading 148
Breathing and attention 149
Reading ‘Tunnel’ 150
Redescribing the deictics of ‘Tunnel’ 151
Gregory and Jack 153
Jack’s reading of ‘Tunnel’ 153
Gregory’s reading of ‘Tunnel’ 155
Interpretive moments 157
Voice and recognition 158
Gaps and volition 158
Rules of reading 159
Reading the best text possible 160
Public, private and shared readings 161
Conclusions 162
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 163
11 Playing the text: conclusions 165
One historical moment and its general implications 165
Playing the text 165
Some implications of playfulness in the processing of texts 171
Theories of play and art 172
Re-workings and re-playings 174
An ecology of attention 177
Conditions and constraints of the study 179
Conclusions 180
Afterword: new literacy ecologies of the twenty-first century 184
References 193
Index 198
Acknowledgements
Many people helped me as I worked on this book, but readers will not get very
far into the early chapters without realizing that my greatest debt is to the young
people who participated in the project. Without exception they were extremely
friendly, impressively intelligent, unfailingly helpful and always fascinating. The
cooperating schools also lived up to that label in the fullest sense; administrators
and teachers smoothed my way at every opportunity. My only regret is that I cannot
name them all in order to thank them properly. I hope they will accept my profound
gratitude on an anonymous basis.
Six graduate students worked on particular aspects of this project over a three-
year period: Jennifer Branch, Kim Fraser, Mary-Lee Judah, Jyoti Mangat, Dan
Mirau and Kristine van Leenan. Jenn and Dan, in particular, were central to the
achievement of this project. They lugged quantities of equipment without com-
plaint, played sample computer games with rather more alacrity, but, most of
all, they contributed their own observations and reflections on all of the 1998–99
sessions. I will never think of this project without remembering what a good time
we all had on our trips to the schools over that year.
Another crucial contributor to this project was Deidre Johnston, the world’s
most diligent transcriber. The conditions under which some of the tapes were made
were far from ideal, and Deidre took extraordinary steps to ensure that as little as
possible was lost to acoustic problems. Anyone who has ever recorded the dialogue
accompanying a noisy computer game played in a room with a gurgling aquarium
and then expected to read the results in a usable transcript will know the scale of
my obligation to her.
My colleagues in the School of Library and Information Studies and the Faculty
of Education at the University of Alberta also played a substantial role in helping
me to make this book the best I can manage. Many people helped in various ways,
and Jill McClay, Ingrid Johnston and Anna Altmann read many draft chapters and
supplied excellent advice.
Ialso owe a more formal debt to the University of Alberta Education Faculty.
In the autumn of 1999 they awarded me a Coutts-Clarke Fellowship, which freed
me from teaching for a semester and enabled me to make a major start on my
intimidating stack of transcripts.