<div dir="ltr"><div style="text-align:left"><div><b>CSAA Intermezzo Symposium<br></b></div><b><br></b></div><div style="text-align:left"><font size="4"><b>Cultural Studies and the New Uses of Literacy</b></font><br></div><br>
<div><div><div><div>Draft program and registration available at <span style="color:rgb(0,0,255)"><br><a href="https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/events/csaa-symposium/">https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/events/csaa-symposium/</a></span><br>
<br><h3>KEYNOTES</h3>
<p><img src="https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/media/SAMImage/Bill_Green.jpg" alt="Bill Green" title="Bill Green" style="float: left; margin: 8px;" height="162" width="217"></p>
<p><strong>Bill Green</strong></p>
<p><strong>Rethinking Literacy for the New Media Age?</strong></p>
<p>Notwithstanding
Richard Hoggart’s significance in the formation and history of cultural
studies, and recurring references to his early book <em>The Uses of Literacy</em>,
I want to argue that literacy as such doesn’t figure all that much in
the field of cultural studies, at least in its dominant constructions.
When it is not being deployed more or less metaphorically, there is
overwhelmingly a sense of what has been described as “the assumption of
literacy” – the view that literacy is something that can and should be
simply ‘assumed’ in cultural studies work, or perhaps ‘presumed’,
especially when that field is conceived as, first and foremost, a
university discipline. I argue this is symptomatic of its restricted
engagement with education, as both a practice and a field of study.
Literacy, it seems, is all too often invested with the same kind of
taken-for-grantedness as education. Seeking to open up a more productive
dialogue between these two fields, this presentation will firstly
explore the notion of a paradigmatic shift from ‘print’ to ‘digital
electronics’, before going on to provide a reconceptualised,
historically informed account of literacy, with due regard for changing
formations of technology and culture, communication and power. What <em>is</em> at issue in rethinking literacy for the new media age?</p>
<p><em><strong>Bill Green</strong></em> is Emeritus Professor of
Education at Charles Sturt University, NSW. He has a longstanding
interest in the relationship between education and cultural studies. His
research profile includes work ranging across curriculum inquiry and
literacy studies, English curriculum history, technocultural studies,
doctoral research education, and education for rural-regional
sustainability. Recent publications include the edited volumes <em>Literacy in 3D: An Integrated Perspective in Theory and Practice</em> (ACER, 2012), with Catherine Beavis, and <em>Rethinking Rural Literacies: Transnational Perspectives</em>(Palgrave
Macmillan), with Michael Corbett. He is presently completing another
edited volume on the body in professional practice, learning and
education, to be published by Springer.</p>
<p><img src="https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/media/SAMImage/Lelia_Green.jpg" alt="Lelia Green" title="Lelia Green" style="float: left; margin: 8px;" height="205" width="136"></p>
<p><strong>Lelia Green</strong></p>
<p><strong>Children's digital literacies: a contested space</strong></p>
<p>Early writers on children’s digital literacies were swift to identify
contested priorities. P. David Marshall, for example, discussed the
fact that parents bought computers for their children because of the
educational imperatives while children used computers for games and
socialising: “The arcade game dimension of the computer shifts its value
from information source to entertainment site with a particular
[working] class dimension.” (1997, p. 71). The anxieties this dynamic
elicited were further exacerbated by the realisation of (in those days)
accessible sexual content: “Parents still occupy the role of the
initiated with regard to sexuality, [but] if they are uninitiated
technologically then they lose the power base from which to set the
markers for progressive socialisation.” (1997, p. 68)</p>
<p>Eighteen years later, many of those children now have children of
their own but what passes for digital literacy in which circumstances is
no less hotly contested. Indeed, more organisations and institutions
are involved in the debate. Schools, policy makers, parents and children
all have digital literacy agendas.</p>
<p>This presentation takes policy-driven research with children (AU Kids
Online) and combines it with analysis of in-depth qualitative
interviews to construct the different frames of what passes for digital
literacy for whom in which circumstances: and when such digital
literacies can be plausibly denied. As one 14-16 year old told me: “I
recently got Snapchat and I know what it’s for but […] I only got it to
Snapchat friends that I know, but it can be used for something really
different.” (Even his friends contested that statement.)</p></div><div><div><div><strong><em>Lelia Green</em></strong> is Professor of Communications at
Edith Cowan University, in the School of Communications and Arts, and a
co-Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre
of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. She has been the
first Chief Investigator on three ARC Discovery Grants and on four ARC
Linkage Grants. Lelia is the author or co-author of over 80 refereed
articles, book chapters and conference papers and co-edited <em>Framing technology: society choice and change</em> (1994, Green & Guinery). She is the author of <em>The internet: an introduction to new media</em> (Berg, 2010) and <em>Communication, technology and society</em> (Sage, 2002, also co-published as <em>Technoculture: from alphabet to cybersex</em>, Allen & Unwin, 2002).<br>
<br><br>--<br> <br><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Paul Byron <br>Research Assistant <br>School of Arts and Media<br>University of New South Wales<br>Sydney NSW 2052<br><a href="mailto:paul.byron@unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">paul.byron@unsw.edu.au</a><br>
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