Media Literacy + Information Literacy: Converging Spaces / Transcending Silos

A Letter from Guest Editors, Neil Andersen, Spencer Brayton, and Natasha Casey

As governments, educational institutions, and nonprofits around the world continue to struggle with the fast-paced evolution of ubiquitous digital technologies, media and information literacy have arguably never enjoyed more mainstream public recognition than they have during the last decade. But for educators attempting to dip their toes in the media and information literacy waters for the first time, understanding the fields and terms, as well as the ways in which they intersect and overlap with digital literacy, news literacy, visual literacy, data literacy, etc. can be overwhelming. In this issue Cooke introduces readers to another challenge: a critical cultural literacy model, “a type of pedagogy, one that is anti-racist, anti-oppressive, community-based and empowering. It is also indigenous-focused social justice and advocacy based”. This model includes a wide variety of literacies including emotional literacy, political literacy, historical literacy, and racial literacy. No wonder, as Al-Musalli and Wight note, that “we are lost in the literacies!” It has been common for writers and practitioners in all these literacy fields to situate “theirs” as the most significant. “Doug Belshaw suggested that umbrella terms are futile, and observed that, “people tend to assume that their favored term includes every other term” (Panke, 2015).” Many media literacy scholars have rather outdated perceptions about information literacy and continue to view it as a purely skills-based endeavor, revealing a lack of awareness regarding the transformations that have occurred within the information literacy field. As Baer observes, “the version of information literacy that Buckingham critiques rests on a narrow definition of information”. On the other hand some scholars^[1] consider media literacy and information literacy as two sides of the same coin that can be understood and taught together (can media really be separated from information or vice versa?). Until recently, and despite common theoretical influences and objectives, it was relatively rare to see them combined. That dearth inspired this special JML issue.

Media literacy and information literacy have been defined, understood and taught in a myriad of ways and look very different depending on the context, too often resulting in insularity in both fields. But there have been changes in recent years. Leaning observed that starting in “ . . . the mid-to-late 2000s and 2010s information literacy has begun to overlap with aspects of media literacy in terms of its content, practices and foci and there is now a strong movement towards integrating the two practices”.^[2] In the 2019 International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy the inclusion of entries on critical information literacy by prominent academic librarians Drabinski and Tewell points to the slightly narrowing gap between the two areas.^[3] O’Byrne, Hilliger and Belshaw note in this issue the importance and challenges of de-siloing discussions as they attempt to “transcend siloed literacy models to help diverse learners navigate the digital landscape responsibly”.

Libraries are exciting sites of struggle for this synthesis, where people and ideas collide. Yet, some think that libraries are warehouses of information and librarians are not always top of mind as educators. As noted earlier, old-school stereotypes abound about what libraries are and what information literacy is (card catalogs, threading the microfiche, lacking critical pedagogy, etc.). And speaking of critical pedagogy, we haven’t even cracked the can of worms that is neoliberal (or ‘acritical’ as Higdon, Butler and Swerzenski term it)^[4] versus critical approaches to media and information literacy although Harnell, Guldin and Morrison, and Gambino have plenty of insights on this important topic.

Libraries are active spaces and supportive community hubs, where learning takes place in a myriad of ways (formal and informal) and access to information in a variety of formats is abundant. Glotov’s case study of a permanent exhibition within the National Library of Latvia demonstrates this. And McDavitt and McDougall—using the theoretical concept of the ‘third space’—synthesize the intersection of libraries in general and school libraries in particular with media literacy. This shift in point of view from libraries as warehouses of information to the ‘third space’ concept further supports both library spaces and library workers as change agents with an eye towards the future, and in support of the communities they serve, especially as it relates to media and information literacy.

We need to pay attention to and support libraries because they are helping to transport us into the future in a variety of ways, including their capacity to make connections and partnerships across disciplines and learning environments (see contributions by Brennan, Cooke, Mallon and Mallon, McDavitt and McDougall, Friesem and Sims). Although interdisciplinarity has been a buzzword in academia for years, rarely do academic institutions provide the resources to support these types of projects. And collaborations between media and information literacy should be transdisciplinary. Citing Crenshaw and Hall, Belshaw, Hilliger and O’Byrne note, “ . . . . transdisciplinarity prioritizes social relevance and the common good, transcending disciplinary boundaries to seek unity of knowledge that can be interrogated and transformed”. Swanson’s article points to the glaring omissions that result when disciplinary silos remain firmly entrenched. He observes, “one significant commonality shared by information literacy and media literacy is that they are clearly out of touch with findings and current lines of thinking in psychology and neuroscience”. His article should give pause to anyone researching and teaching media or information literacy.

This issue begins by republishing David Buckingham’s provocative blog post from January 2023, “The Trouble with Information Literacy”, followed by responses from Andrea Baer, Andrea Gambino and Renee Hobbs. Can we conceptualize media and information literacies as different flavors of ice cream that share key ingredients as Hobbs proffers? Or because there are significant political and pedagogical consequences at stake, does how we define and frame definitions mean awkward questions must be asked as Buckingham contends? This thoughtful dialogue among four educators emanating from both media literacy and information literacy sets the stage for what follows.

The first section (framework analysis) includes some equally provocative works that interrogate the various literacies. The second section features examples of teacher-librarian collaborations in primary, secondary, and tertiary educational settings while the last offers a variety of fascinating case studies from Europe, Africa, and North America.

Thank you to the contributors for their time, support, labor and patience over the past several months. Thanks also to the editorial team and everyone at IC4ML for providing the support as well as the platform to delve into some of the issues that have preoccupied us for some time now. It only took us six years to get here. It was at a 2017 media literacy conference in Chicago when Karen Ambrosh and Mareli Rowe first floated the idea for this special issue. We’d like to dedicate it to Mareli, as she was always open to new ideas, and more importantly, new ways of thinking.

Neil, Spencer & Natasha

References

^[1]Marcus Leaning, “Towards the Integration of Media and Information Literacy: A Rationale for a 21st Century Approach,” in Media Literacy Education in Action: Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspectives, ed. Belinha S. DeAbreu and Paul Mihailidis (New York: Routledge, 2014). Sonia Livingstone, E. Van Couvering, and Nancy Thumin, “Converging Traditions of Research on Media and Information Literacies,” in Handbook of Research on New Literacies, eds. Julie Coiro, Michele Knobel, Colin Lankshear, and Donald J. Leu (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associate, 2008).

^[2]An Approach to Digital Literacy Through the Integration of Media and Information Literacy. Marcus Leaning. Media and Communication, 2019, Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages 4-13

^[3]https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+International+Encyclopedia+of+Media+Literacy%2C+2+Volume+Set-p-9781118978245

^[4]Higdon, Nolan; Butler, Allison; and Swerzenski, J. D. (2021) “Inspiration and motivation: The similarities and differences between critical and acritical media literacy,” Democratic Communiqué: Volume 30 : Issue 1 , Article 1. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/democratic-communique/vol30/iss1/1/