Critical Media Literacy in the 2.0

There is no doubt that technological developments are rapidly changing the way we communicate and, therefore, the demands of what it means to be a literate person in the 21st century. The term Web 2.0, the theme of this issue of Language Arts, refers to changes that have come about because of technology that allow quicker and broader sharing of information. Instead of focusing on technical aspects of the new technologies, Lankshear and Knobel (2006) describe a new ethos that emerges from literacy practices that are more participatory, collaborative, and distributed. In other words, rather than readers passively receiving information from “expert” texts, Web 2.0 blurs lines between consumers and producers of text and therefore increases the participation of ordinary people in knowledge production. Many see this new power to “publish” text to wide audiences as a needed democratization of knowledge that can potentially develop a more engaged citizenry. What does critical literacy look like in this new media landscape?