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In defence of writing: a social semiotic perspective on digital media, literacy and learning
Author(s) -
Skaar Håvard
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1741-4369
pISSN - 1741-4350
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4369.2009.00502.x
Subject(s) - semiotics , perspective (graphical) , digital media , social semiotics , media literacy , literacy , social media , digital literacy , focus (optics) , sociology , point (geometry) , mode (computer interface) , multimedia , psychology , pedagogy , mathematics education , computer science , epistemology , world wide web , artificial intelligence , human–computer interaction , philosophy , physics , geometry , mathematics , optics
From a learning perspective, social semiotics researchers tend to focus on the liberation latent in the multimedia options available through the new media. It is true that digital media democratise the possibilities open to the general public of a more varied and comprehensive text production than ever before, both in and outside school. Participating in this text production naturally implies a richer potential for learning. But digital technology also allows us to opt out of, and thus avoid, semiotic work. With this as the starting point, the present article sets out to highlight the pedagogical benefits associated with the written mode, precisely in an age when the digital media are making multimodal forms of expression increasingly available to us all.