R e l at e d d R i v e R s

New media ecology: New communication tools require new media literacies beyond text

Extreme longevity: Increasing global lifespans change the nature of careers and learning

Superstructed organizations: Social technologies drive new forms of production and value creation

New technologies and tools, from video production, digital animation, and augmented reality to gaming, will create a need for new media

literacies beyond text. The next generation of workers will need to become fluent in critically “reading” and assessing new media forms in

the same way that they currently assess a paper or presentation.

Increasingly, tools for creating compelling visual representations of information are available to all, often for free. As these new tools emerge, expectations for the quality of employee visual communications will rise. Knowledge workers will be expected to communicate persuasively using mixed media—video, simulations, models, and images. Static presentations of information will give way to infographics and dynamic simulations of data as visualization plays a crucial role in helping us cope with large data sets and make sense of the complexity of our environments.

Video in particular will become pervasive in all aspects of home and work life, and understanding the new genres and conventions that emerge from video culture will become a key competency. Knowledge of fonts and layouts was once restricted to a small set of print designers and typesetters, until word processing programs brought this within the reach of everyday office workers. Similarly, user-friendly production editing tools will make the language of video—concepts such as frame, depth of field, etc.—part of the common vernacular.

An essential enabler to developing media literacy will be high levels of adaptability and willingness to keep learning throughout one’s professional career. Tools and programs that workers rely on will be quickly superseded, so an openness to learning new software and techniques will need to be a permanent feature for the next generation of workers.

In the old paradigm of one-to-many communication, media literacy was

largely about being able to interpret and think critically about the content being broadcast to us. Being a content producer brings a host of new competencies aside from keeping up with technical developments. As media projects are increasingly open, workers will need to develop ways of collaborating in real time with others. They will need to develop good judgment in deciding which media forms are most appropriate to accomplish different tasks and to relate to different audiences: What form works best when presenting to the board, to colleagues, or to customers?

The new media ecology will also place particular demands on employees to manage their digital identity. All of us will be developing a digital trail of different media forms, some personal, some professional. As online reputation becomes an important marker for trust, employees will need to curate the media they produce and think about their digital profile in a holistic way.

Ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these for persuasive communication

new media literacy

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Source: socialmediaclassroom.com

signals

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H o wa R d R H e i n g o l d ’s s o c i a l M e d i a c l a s s R o o M

The Social Media Classroom is a free and open-source (Drupal-based) web service that provides teachers and learners with an integrated set of social media tools for teaching skills related to blogs, chat, forums, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, and video commenting. The Classroom also includes curricular material: syllabi, lesson plans, resource repositories, screencasts, and videos.

Source: annenberg.usc.edu

Source: reputation.com

n e w M e d i a l i t e R ac i e s P R o j e c t

The New Media Literacies Project at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism has developed a list of eleven key new media literacy skills that they believe everyone will need, not only for the workplace or classroom but also as citizens, to be able to participate fully in society in the next decade. These include simulation (the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes) and appropriation (the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content).

R e P u tat i o n . co M

Reputation is an online privacy and reputation company. It began in 2006 with a focus on helping parents protect their children from damaging their reputations through embarrassing postings on social media websites, but quickly expanded to add similar services for adults. Services include monitoring of web content about their clients and advocating to remove damaging content when it is found.

Gillmor, D. (2010). Mediactive: Creating a user’s guide to networked media. Retrieved from http://mediactive.com/book/.

Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., Robison, A. J. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Resources for Further Reading