12:01 AM
Vance Holmes
We must deepen our commitment to promoting media literacy with a focus on strategies that improve critical-reading skills.
Linear to Hypertext
Brave New Word
Thoughts on the new digital age
and the old problem of cultural bias --
or what could more precisely be called:
Enviro-centrism
It is enviro-centrism, a kind of willful ignorance, that leads many, otherwise rational, thinking adults to insist that reading means reading a book. I define enviro-centrism as a refusal to acknowledge multiple perspectives and world-views. Beyond ethnocentric beliefs about the superiority of one's culture and cultural norms, enviro-centrism is the narrow-minded unwillingness to shake off one’s own mind-set and experience the world-view of people from a different culture, social background or, in this case, a different generation.
"Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson:
You find the present tense and the past perfect."
-- Owens Lee Pomeroy
You find the present tense and the past perfect."
-- Owens Lee Pomeroy
Our current literary debate, instigated by the recent techno-revolutionary rise of digital media, is old news. When the waltz was first introduced into Europe’s ballrooms, people were scandalized and proclaimed it not to be dance at all – but merely a vulgar display. Early rock and roll was denounced as raunchy noise with no artistic merit.
Similarly, the cultural tunnel-vision of enviro-centrism is behind the modern mistaken notion that texting and online chatting don’t qualify as real writing, or that reading websites isn't really reading.
Conservative librarians, literary critics, and culturally incompetent educators are entitled to their opinions, but the digital revolution has moved us past the traditional gate-keepers.
Similarly, the cultural tunnel-vision of enviro-centrism is behind the modern mistaken notion that texting and online chatting don’t qualify as real writing, or that reading websites isn't really reading.
Conservative librarians, literary critics, and culturally incompetent educators are entitled to their opinions, but the digital revolution has moved us past the traditional gate-keepers.
"If you're yearning for the good old days,
just turn off the air conditioning."
-- Griff Niblack
just turn off the air conditioning."
-- Griff Niblack
In the olden days (10 years ago), if you wanted to publish – you had to go through a literary agent and the junior execs at Random House or Houghton Mifflin. Now, all you need is a web-connected PC.
Corporate publishers are not concerned with what young people should be reading, but rather, what they actually are reading. In What’s Hot and Who’s Not in Teen Magazines, Cathy Hochadel notes that even those companies still pushing paper books and magazines realize they need a presence in cyberspace if they want to survive in the real world. "From giants like Hearst to independents like Carus," Hochadel writes, "many publishers offer free access to supplemental data (videos, forums, blogs, etc.) on websites bearing the names of their magazines."
Corporate publishers are not concerned with what young people should be reading, but rather, what they actually are reading. In What’s Hot and Who’s Not in Teen Magazines, Cathy Hochadel notes that even those companies still pushing paper books and magazines realize they need a presence in cyberspace if they want to survive in the real world. "From giants like Hearst to independents like Carus," Hochadel writes, "many publishers offer free access to supplemental data (videos, forums, blogs, etc.) on websites bearing the names of their magazines."
"Today's teens view technology not only as a part of life,
but as a way of life."
but as a way of life."
-- Debra Lau Whelan, Generation Tech
A July, 2011 MSNBC News article by Jane Weaver highlights findings from a recent study that show teenagers spend more time on the web than watching television, typically surfing over 16 hours a week. The average teenager texts the equivalent of five or six novels a year! Not only are young folks reading and writing, they are doing so far more than previous generations ever did!
In truth, effective text messaging is writing that requires a deep, personal interaction with words as symbols. Far from just a slanguage of abbreviated chatter, text messaging is the instant creation of code. The restrictions of the medium require its users to engage with language on the level of a poet. Texting is a process of pure word manipulation and it is addicting -- in the same way that the telephone was addicting to teens in the 1950s.
. . . But is it ART?
As for enviro-centric protestations about quality and literary merit, Linda W. Braun sums up my feelings quite well in her article, Reading -- It’s Not Just about Books. She firmly warns, "Don’t make negative judgments on the quality of what teens read simply because the reading is taking place through nontraditional means." Reading is reading -- and classics that stand the test of time will survive the digital age.
Braun also nicely articulates the need for adults to go beyond merely acknowledging and accepting new media -- to embracing it, and bravely embracing our responsibility to guide young people toward media literacy through critical-reading skills. Braun writes:
Braun also nicely articulates the need for adults to go beyond merely acknowledging and accepting new media -- to embracing it, and bravely embracing our responsibility to guide young people toward media literacy through critical-reading skills. Braun writes:
"The more willing adults are to recognize the important role that technology based reading has in teen lives, the more likely it is that teens will start to think of themselves as readers (and the adults will think of them as readers, too.) After all, that’s what we want, isn’t it? We want a world of readers, not just a world of those who read books."
Posted in: REFLECTIONS
