We identify some tensions between formal education and informal learning in the uses of popular literacy since the nineteenth century, in order to argue for a ‘demand-led’ model of education in digital literacy.
YouTube: home port for lip-syncers, karaoke singers, trainspotters, birdwatchers, skateboarders, hip-hoppers, small-time wrestling federations, educators, third-wave feminists, churches, proud parents, poetry slammers, gamers, human rights activists, hobbyists. It gets 10 hours of new content every minute. Where did all that come from ask Henry Jenkins and John Hartley.
Publication: Cognitive playfulness, creative capacity and generation ‘C’ learners
This article is due to be published in J. Rutter (ed.), Digital Games Industries: Work, Knowledge and Consumption, Ashgate, 2008.
Richard Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy was published 50 years ago in 1957. It was an intellectual response to the challenge of mass media and it was also a popular bestseller in its own right. It set the agenda for educational and disciplinary reform that lasted a generation.
The International Journal of Cultural Studies (IJCS) marks its tenth year of publication with this special issue on ‘The Uses of Richard Hoggart,’ co-edited by Sue Owen and John Hartley.
After 50 years, what are the implications of the Uses of Literacy for educational modernisation, in the light of subsequent changes from 'read only' literacy to 'read-write' uses of multimedia? This article argues that a broad extension of popular literacy via consumer-generated content offers not only emancipationist potential in line with Hoggart’s own project, but also economic benefits via the dynamics of creative innovation.
In March 2007 we participated in the Digital Literacy and Creative Innovation in a Knowledge Economy research symposium. The symposium was a collaboration between the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation and the ARC Cultural Research Network. It featured 33 speakers, including Sir Ken Robinson.