The Future in cardboard and pixels

First Monday publishes first article on Transliteracy

The highly-respected journal First Monday has published an article by the PART team at De Montfort University. Transliteracy: crossing divides lays out our current thinking about the concept and invites response and comment. Notable as the first peer-reviewed article on the concept, it was written collectively by Sue Thomas, Chris Joseph, Jess Laccetti, Bruce Mason, Simon Mills, Simon Perril, and Kate Pullinger - a supreme effort of collaboration!

Abstract Transliteracy might provide a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century. It is not a new behavior but has only been identified as a working concept since the Internet generated new ways of thinking about human communication. This article defines transliteracy as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks" and opens the debate with examples from history, orality, philosophy, literature, and ethnography.

The Blog of the damned

Admittedly nothing in there yet but it's only just started. In one of those odd little quirks, the email informing me about its creation got quarantined in a spam filter. Gets me wondering just how much Forteana2.0 gets caught in spam nets.

Not sure why but the name "The Blog of the damned" is enough to make me smile. For those wanting a headsup (because I know that nearly 3 people read this blog), I have a couple of posts about such things on the transliteracy blog.

The Curse of the Fatuous Binary

A great post by Jess on the transliteracy blog about a panel featuring Margaret Attwood called "Digitise or Die"

As I entered the empty auditorium (I was the first there) I paused and took in my surroundings: padded leatherette seats for the audience, modern, sleek white armchairs for the panel, a bottle of water next to each long-necked microphone, dimmed lights, shining stage, and a background image centered behind the panel announcing the speakers and the title of the talk. I then settled in, ready for "compelling arguments" which, I read, would "leave [me] with a renewed enthusiasm for books and vowing to spend less time online." (keep on going)