Bringing Materiality into Thinking about Digital Literacy: Theories and Practices of Critical Education in a Digital Age

Abstract

This chapter makes a critical intervention in studies and practices of digital literacies. I argue that to become digitally literate also implies an awareness of digital technolo- gies’ material dimension, i.e., their technological affordances, economic embedding, and societal, environmental, as well as embodied effects and repercussions. After a brief walk-through of key advances in thinking about literacy, the chapter homes in on the notion of Critical Digital Literacies to conceptually support the further inquiry. I define Critical Digital Literacies as the knowledges, skills, and competences necessary to see the use and implications of digital technologies in the widest possible context. A critical materialist approach directs attention to unintended economic, social, and environmental ramifications, focuses on questions of surveillance and subject forma- tion in and through technology, and offers concrete alternatives to hegemonic tools and practices. After having outlined such key aspects, I provide a series of concrete recommendations on how critical literacies can be fostered in the contemporary class- room both with and without access to digital devices.