Literacy not Litter

New media journalist Clive Thompson interviewed fellow rhetorician and friend of Virtualpolitik Andrea Lunsford in "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." In the article in Wired Lunsford describes her longitudinal research project on college student writing that incorporates the writing that students are doing outside of class. I tend to have trouble with the literacy paradigm, because I think that it directs attention away from the issues of digital rights, even though advocates for digital literacy like Lunsford and Henry Jenkins are some of the most visible and vocal proponents of copyright reform, net neutrality, and anti-censorship awareness. But the Lunsford/Thompson argument about the importance of audience in the digital literacy landscape is presented concisely and well. Given the number of people seeking funding for audience-less "creepy treehouses" or "walled gardens" in the name of literacy, this article makes an important point.