Taking A Step Out of the Classroom: New Literacies, Media and Technologies

Abstract

Intending to deal with practices of language related to new media and technologies, new literacy studies must be willing to discuss a complex reality that demands specific meaning-making processes and new ways of sharing not reducible to the traditional school. This calls for a way of thinking that includes at least two points: an emphasis on other contexts than the classroom dynamics and an idea that every language practice will be synesthetic. This paper tries to understand how practices related to these new contexts have been researched in literacy studies. It also argues that such studies should be part of a broader political and ethical approach to uses of language in various social spheres. These uses needs to be related to a wide context of unequal distribution of power: the school is one more instance instance of language use in one of such spheres. This paper recommends more researches focused on extracurricular practices - involving new media and technologies or not - based on localities where such practices actually occur. All of that while keeping the focus on spaces that can foster a critical and social way of thinking.