Ordinarily when I say digital literacy, I am careful to premise it with the descriptors critical and creative, terms that, upon first impression, might seem a little ambiguous. After all, each word has at least two meanings. In this case the use of the word critical could give the impression that this is an essential or important incarnation of digital literacy, and I would argue it very well may be, but my main intention is to invoke the analytic meaning of the word: to interrogate, deconstruct and discern value. Likewise creative is often read in the sense of creativity, the process of hatching worthy and original ideas, which actually would lend itself to the critical component, which requires some measure of divergent thinking. Instead I don’t require that creative include uniqueness or discovery, just conscientious construction of objects and ideas, with the possibility that they may also be innovative or even deviant. Such distinctions provoke a preamble, this section jumps into digital literacy as it is seen in recent literature and lands squarely in the definition that inspires[G1] my proposal[G2] .

Literacy finds many different definitions in varying contexts, but one of the most globally conscious, as well as universally adopted, is that is put forth by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO 2004):
Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute,[1] using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential and to participate fully in their community and wider society.
In presenting this definition UNESCO (2004, 2005) thoughtfully positions literacy as a set of social practices rather than a singular skill, and elevates it to the level of a human right (the right to education[G4] , UNESCO 2005). It suggests that meaningful acquisition and application of literacy provides the basis for positive social transformation, justice, and personal and collective freedom. Although this characterization establishes desired outcomes that match those of the ideological component of Cyberpower the UN report purposely restricts their focus [G5] to text and written materials. It is at this juncture where digital literacy comes into play.
In the vernacular, literacy often is taken to be equivalent to competency, proficiency or functionality, and is often affixed to other words to create compound meanings[G6] , such as information literacy, (new) media literacy[G7] , and stranger and debatable pairings, such as emotional literacy.[2] Digital literacy is another one of these duos, and like the others it has a surrounding body of literature and discourse. However, I think it stands apart[G8] because it is well-positioned to appropriately frame research on libraries, information technology and empowerment, as will be explained.
Many definitions of digital literacy have turned up over the course of the past two decades, but they can generally be sorted into two major categories: (1) conceptual (abstract) definitions, often advocacy-laden, and (2) “standardized sets of operations intended to provide national and international normalizations” (Lankshear and Knobel 2006:21), or, more simply, comparable described[G9] skills. In a sense this is just theory and application, but the examples are so numerous and vague that they become difficult to track, especially when someone is seeking to determine which theory leads to which application. Even still, digital literacy research is largely international,[3] which makes direct comparison and universal classification difficult, and the majority of it seems to be focused on youth enrolled in K-12 education,[4] which delivers an incomplete view of the issue. Reviewed here is not a comprehensive or catch-all literature review of all ‘digitally’ associated literacies [G10] but instead a simpler concrete and outcome-oriented alignment of commonalities found in several apprehensions and models of digital literacy that I think are important[G11] . In other words, this framework provides the basis for my research approach.

Conceptual definitions of digital literacy include a call for an alteration of the media and mode limitation seen in the aforementioned UN articulation: reading and writing with physical text. Some interpret this as broadly as the ability to comprehend information however it is presented physically, no matter how complex[5] (adapted from Lanham 1995[G12] ), while others provide a new concentration as a stipulation: the ability to understand, evaluate and organize information represented through ICTs (among the first to propose this was Gilster[6] 1998, there have been many others since). The field of New Literacy Studies is so bold as to suggest that digital literacy[7] is a facet of entirely ‘new literacies’ and that though these literacies include practices mediated by post-typographic forms of text[G13] they also inherently involve social behaviors and patterns, such as being ‘participatory,’ ‘collaborative,’ or more ‘distributed’ (Lankshear and Knobel 2008, Jenkins et al. 2006, Mills 2010, Hague and[G14] Payton 2010). Such practices may dramatically transform the production of knowledge (Warschauer 2010); this implies that new sets of cultural or social relations may be necessarily represented through information sharing and expression with ICTs. Stated differently, it could be said that these new social practices are value-laden, and these values can get intertwined with the process and medium of ICTs.
The power digital literacy, to some extent, actually lies in its flexibility and lack of strong structure. In the 80’s scholars grappled with the idea of computer literacy, and later, in the 90’s they incorporated a broader view of information literacy (Bruce 1994, 1997). Bawden (2008) explains that the roots of digital literacy are interrelated to a host of other terms: library literacy (Bawden 2001), network literacy (McClure 1994), informany (Neelameghan 1995), mediacy (Inoue, Naito, and Koshizuka 1997), and e-literacy (Martin 2003, 2005). Though the objective is not to create one master form of digital literacy, Lankshear and Knobel (2008) suggest that a view of digital literacies (plural) is appropriate, and can account for the underpinnings of traditional text literacy, computer literacy, background knowledge, central competencies like knowledge assembly, and attitudes or perspectives, like independent learning.
As a result, digital literacy is notably situated in related sociocultural debates (Koutsogiannis 2007, Williams 2003), topics like textual design [G15] and multimodality (Kress 2003[G16] , Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001), the trajectory of education in the global information age (Cope & Kalantzis 2000[G17] , Luke & Carrington 2003), what forms or adoption processes the social practices of literacy take (Lankshear and Knobel 2008),[8] and in envisioning new media as potential sites or environments of learning (Gee 2004). This discourse may be, in many cases, a reproduction of previously-encountered literacy debates (Collins & Blot 2003), and a great deal of the extant reports on digital literacy could stand to benefit from integrating a broader range of disciplinary perspectives.[9] Conversations too far removed from practice may give insufficient attention to cultural tradition, the role of identities[G18] and local economic[G19] factors, to the point where we may fall into the trap of reinforcing digital capitalism, in a variation on a broader theme of the digital divide (Pieterse 2005, Koutsogiannis 2007). Despite all of this, the rhetoric does illustrate the sheer assemblage of ideologies on the topic, as well as the powerful interdisciplinary constituency of scholarship.

The fragmented theory from the numerous academic disciplines surrounding digital literacy are inherited in its application in research; many measures of digital literacy exist in recent publications. Similar to education and other intersections of humanities topics and social science, digital literacy seems to be most often measured in two ways: (1) in terms of flexible (qualitatively described) examples and typologies[G20] of best practices as well as (2) specifically measured aptitudes and behaviors, usually seen in the performance of tasks .
A complete review of studies employing these types of measures is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, reviewed here are two exemplars that give an idea of the ways conceptions of digital literacy might be applied.[G21]
First is the model for participatory culture discussed by Jenkins’ et al. (2006). In their report the authors argue for the existence of an emerging culture tied to digital literacy, described as having “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices” (Jenkins et al. 2006:3) The authors suggest that the recipe for participatory culture includes many social practices connected to engagement with ICTs, such as affiliations in online communities, digital expressions and circulations, and distributed problem-solving. They see this social action as related fundamentally to other challenges, such as digital inclusion and participation, transparency of information, and the question of ethics in the proliferation of new media. Out of this they draw a set of skills and cultural competencies and give examples that include teaching scenarios and encouragement for best practices. For instance, they describe transmedia navigation, “the ability to deal with the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities” (Jenkins et al. 2006:46) by presenting the case of Pokémon, a fictitious set of creatures for which there is no single core source of information. Children learn about Pokémon by following stories of their experiences and characteristics in a variety of mediums with different affordances and systems of representation, including card games, television, videogames and websites. Though Pokémon appear in many contexts, children still have a grasp of who and what they are. The application of digital literacy seen here is helpful in that it constructs useful and flexible categories and instances of social practice, but without chaining them to specific information technologies.
Second, Eshet-Alkalai and Hamburger (2004) and Eshet-Alkalai and Chajut (2009) introduce a compelling model in their operationalization of digital literacy as testable skills[G22] : photovisual literacy, reproduction literacy, branching literacy, information literacy, socioemotional literacy, and real-time thinking skills. Their series of studies (2004, 2009) featured a sample comprised of a diverse group of participants controlled for age, education and socioeconomic variables. They demonstrated the testing of digital literacy skills through verifiable and reliable tests over time, but with sufficiently complicated tasks. For instance, participants were challenged to use a word processor to modify the meaning of text by rearranging its parts. The work involved included an understanding of connotation, grammar, and composition as well as knowledge of the interface and comfort with hardware manipulation. In comparison to other simpler measures of digital literacy, such as knowing how to send an email,[10] the authors more effectively capture digital literacy in its context: while they might pay more attention to technical aptitudes and cognitive abilities with regards to certain variables, they acknowledge the complexity and embeddedness of technology use. Knowing how to send an email has as much to do with knowing what or how to write and grasping the cultural norms of the people using your domain of the internet as it does using a mouse or navigating Gmail.
What makes these examples powerful is their emphasis on surrounding context and application-oriented research. They are also in need of one another. Jenkins et al. don’t present metrics that work well with operationalized (hypothesis testing) research and evaluation and Eshet-Alkalai, Hamburger and Chajut remain constrained to cognitive models that don’t take enough of the wisdom of cultural literacy studies [G23] into account. Research on digital literacy more generally falls in with the same trap[G24] : how to balance giving sufficient attention to informing theory and at the same time establishing and testing comparable and valid models or measures.

A valuable digital literacy framework lies in a combination of insights from the field of research reviewed above. Digital literacy is best understood as a fuzzily bounded [G25] and dynamic set of social practices that foster critical social awareness, as well as measurable knowledge of and command over relevant digital tools. This is what is meant by the qualified critical and creative digital literacy[G26] , and I think this combination, is the most likely to affect the arrangements and production of Cyberpower.

Critical social awareness [G27] is the component that keeps this model outcome-oriented[G28] . It is not unlike the objectives of critical pedagogy (Finn 1999): educators must work vigorously to decipher and dismantle the oppressive structure that has come to characterize modern stratified education and push for authentic dialogue between teachers and learners[G29] . This need for a critical mindset goes beyond teaching young students in schools, extending to people of many ages and cultures,[11] and also beyond the domain of skill acquisition—to aiding learners in becoming aware of their right (and capability) to transform reality (Freire 1998). In order to empower[G30] literacy should be an avenue for individuals to better understand how their identity and agency rely on and produce cultural forms. Contemporary introductory sociology classes refer to what is essentially the same concept when they teach students about C. Wright Mills’ (1959) Sociological Imagination: critical consciousness of the relationship(s) between experiences, of individuals and communities, to social structures and processes.

In other words, people become consummately digitally literate by approaching ICT tools critically,[12] and this process deals with a moving target. What has been liberating literacy in the past—simply knowing how to read—has become domesticating literacy—a requirement to be plugged in to the system, but not command power within it—now (Finn 1999), and there is no reason to think this trend will not continue. I would posit leveraging the web is the new facet of this issue. People ought to engage in making sense of information access, communication and production tools in terms of their relevant fundamentals:

• · The ways they affect their capacity to assert identity
• · Recognition of the limitations and opportunities afforded by the cultural context surrounding a given tool
• · Its possibility for meaningful communal participation or collaboration
• · And finally, reflection on this process of sense-making and evaluation [G31]

Robinson (2011) would likely stress that these fundamentals constitute exemplars of creativity as he refers to it, applied imagination, but in this case it is applied sociological imagination.

Critical consideration of ICTs informs and orients the agenda of building a base of knowledge about these tools. To accomplish the transformation of the world around us as Freire describes people require basic concepts and skills for ICT application in everyday life. This includes a dimension of augmented information literacy, which Martin and Grudziecki (2006:7) aptly describe as:

“The awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesize information resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others.”

Creative[G32] digital literacy, as I conceptualize it, hangs on the latter half of this definition, but with greater intensity. Contributing to the creation of the content and knowledge that flows between ICTs is a step towards empowerment, but this may leave out a key condition: the ability to generate, modify, repurpose, remix and otherwise assert control over the mediums these ICTs depend on and exist in. This requirement may be extreme, but can be cast as a long term goal, much as justice and equity might at first seem farfetched. If individuals can program, design, hack, and build software and hardware then they have[G33] greater control over the means of knowledge production. They can participate in liberating movements like Open Source (Chorpa and Dexter 2008), dismantle [G34] oppressive social structures knit into digital architectures[13] (Lessig 2006), help to maintain the innovative context that enabled the proliferation of the internet to develop in the first place (Zittrain 2008) and understand and advocate for their position in a permanently beta[14] (Neff and Stark 2004) ecology of the internet.

Indeed, what sets this apart from classic media, visual, and information literacy is that creative digital literacy is fundamentally about being an active player: the study of the influence of a hundred channels of information all produced by external authorities might be an act of raising awareness, but viewers in the contemporary[15] have little or no ability to shape what’s on the airwaves of radio or TV. They have limited access to the print-based publishing world and little say in the formalized rules of visual design. By contrast, the discourse, ideas and content that perpetuate throughout the internet and via ICTs is in large part authored by individuals and organizations of varying type and scope. Digital literacy is necessarily an involved and directed activity that is about interacting and producing; it must go beyond watching or reading[G35] as much as it might go beyond experience and comfort with computers.[16] Exposure to ICTs does not translate to competence, even when it concerns young learners, but research has begun to suggest that those who are indoctrinated into the active-producer norms of the internet will apply these skills and conceptual models to classic media like TV (Shirky 2010[G36] ). Writing code for your own software program or painting a picture with a mouse are not easily reducible to the application or interpretation of information. These tasks involve a dimension of craft and require attention to social context. The recent decade has produced and made accessible more information and communication [G37] opportunity than ever known before, but leveraging the quantity to produce quality is best as an active process.[G38]

I will return to this argument in a moment, to explain how it relates to Cyberpower, but first I should explain why I have abandoned the frame Cyberpower was previously associated with: the digital divide.

I want to take a moment to distinguish digital literacy from the digital divide. A lot of work on the subject of power and information society examines people’s ability to participate in it meaningfully, be it as part of global conversations, local democracy, or broad social change movements. The frame this instinctually assumes is that participation boils down to a matter (requirement) of access, known commonly as the digital divide, or, stated succinctly, the power differences between people or communities tied to varying levels of computer and internet opportunity[G39] .
Establishing the digital divide as our enemy necessarily embarks us on a quest for digital solutions, but the lack of possession of material access to technology and the absence of skills, community support and perceptions to make effective use of it [G40] is often a symptom of deeper, prolonged issues. In some sense the digital divide is a moving target, the make-up of ICTs shifts as we look back over time. As stated earlier, we’ve been in something of an information revolution (or crisis) for over thirty years. First it was the onset of significant representation of computers in business and homes (the computer and information revolutions, Beniger 1986 and Jones 1982, cited by Williams 2001[G41] ), then it was the internet (DiMaggio and Hargittai 2001, Warschauer 2003) and more recently mobility (Johnson, Levine and Smith 2009, Horrigan 2009), broadband (Horrigan 2008) and Web2.0 (Scholz 2008[G42] ). It is worth taking a step back, disentangling oneself from the ever-changing constitution of ICTs, and interrogating the underlying assumptions and agendas of the digital divide and the credence for the proliferation of ICTs.
A fitting example might be Jan Pieterse (2005), who questions the motivation behind the digital divide in his critique of information communication technologies for development, or ICT4D. His argument takes place in the context of digital capitalism, a world in which networks of corporations drive and dominate cyberspace and subject the world to certain flavors of media and deepen forces like consumerism [G43] (Schiller 2000), which is not unlike the network society described by Castells. ICT4D implies the imposition of flawed (or loaded) developmental models, such as technological determinism or neo-liberalism (market forces are development[G44] ) that serve to mask the true intentions of insidious political and economic agendas: to make money off of poor people through selling more material goods and exploiting labor, to control markets with ideologies like intellectual property rights and to force developing countries to choose between dependence on NGO’s or corporate networks. Pieterse’s stance is accurate, if resoundingly pessimistic, and reminds us of the complex of baggage we drag with us when we deploy ICTs to ‘bridge the divide’ between peoples.
Many researchers have set out on task of revealing the digital divide and have found illustrious ways to describe dimensions related to unequal distribution and use of ICTs: from material access and skills (DiMaggio and Hargittai 2001, Banks 2006, Van Dijk and Hacker 2003) to mental access (interest in ICT) and usage opportunities (Van Dijk and Hacker 2003, Banks 2006) to perceptions of these variables (Porter and Donthu 2006) to the accumulate ability to openly critique technology tools (Banks 2006). Van Dijk and Hacker express the situation rather appropriately when they criticize the passing way most articles situate their findings:
…based on a rather static and superficial sociological analysis of the present situation. Constructing rather arbitrary background variables of individual resources at a single point in time does not make a theory that is able to relate to social and technological development, that is to say, the level of society and technology. (Van Dijk and Hacker 2003).
They instead link ICT policy to long-lasting and concrete positive outcomes, specifically social inclusion and equal distribution of resources or life chances, and suggest researchers place emphasis on variations of classic factors that strongly determine socioeconomic status, like education. Or, in my case, literacy.

The shift in focus from divide to literacy is desirable because the emphasis is placed on changing individuals, who then in turn affect social change in the aggregate, in the ground-up fashion described by Cyberpower. Literacy as I describe it necessitates that the learner play a strong role in orienting the agenda, not just external authorities like government, corporations or NGO’s. In this model access instead becomes a down payment[G45] for literacy, and consequently empowerment, but it doesn’t really amount to much without this end goal.

One stated definition of Cyberpower is that it is a measure of to what extent individuals, groups or movements are able to wield power with benefit from ICTs. Considering this description, it could be apt to state that digital literacy is active Cyberpower. The study of new literacies teaches us transformative social practice can and should be part of digital literacy[G46] , and my chosen modifiers of critical and creative can be construed[G47] as social practices.
To clarify what I mean by this, and in order drive home the connection between critical and creative, as well as underscore a more eloquent presentation of Cyberpower, I would like to introduce the recent work of David Gauntlet (2011).
Gauntlet’s thesis, based largely on the ideas of John Ruskin, William Morris, Karl Marx and Ivan Illich, is well-encapsulated by his book’s title: Making is Connecting. Fundamentally, he argues for the significance of creation, the generation of virtual and real things by everyday people. Like Robinson, Gauntlet attacks the idea that the world of thinking (theory) should be separated from the world of doing (application) in some kind of archaic industrialism-era fashion, and suggests that to have creativity and craft contained by formal intuitions and fields—like professional art, theater, dance, programming, writing and more—is to further the illusion that everyday people cannot be part of cultural production, when, in fact, they’re perhaps as responsible for it as any news media, educational or governmental force. The explosion of interest and sensation over the Web2.0 “brand” (Scholz 2008) represents a challenge to many traditions of cultural construction, and Gauntlet is careful to note some of the downsides, like the danger identified in Baym and Burnett (2009), that collaborative production may be unrewarded or exploited labor, of a kind.[17] Nevertheless he makes three points that I feel are worth noting:

1) In the case of creation, both on and offline, we need to think about more than just tools of craft, but instead platforms and communities. The ease of use and access for a given tool is certainly part of the picture, but Gauntlet’s book is teeming with examples of people connecting to people, by making in context. It is not, a case study of the technology of the moment.

2) Imperfection[G48] is not only okay, but it makes us happy. Unfinished works, learning activities, rough remixing projects, all of these are potentially productive, what is most often important is the personal aspect of a work. Gauntlet finds plenty of ties in the literature on individual happiness to the process of freely-chosen, goal-oriented creation projects, including emotional support, communal recognition, helpful feedback, social approval, self-awareness and more.

3) Making leads to connecting, which in turn affects social capital. Though tracing the importance of social capital in issues like community health is difficult, Gauntlet suggests that this is how to best take a sociological viewpoint on aggregate wellbeing.

Gauntlet lands, finally, in a chapter on Ivan Illich’s work on deschooling[18] and the social roles of the tools of creation.[19] An education system based on creation would look radically different than our contemporary mass-production factory, and would involve more direct skill-sharing and exchange-based teaching, peer matching or mentorship and, quite applicable to my dissertation topic, public libraries full of all kinds of educational objects and attached programs. The vision behind this[G49] , which I think beautifully connects critical to creative in the context of Cyberpower, is stated best by Illich himself:

“Tools are intrinsic to social relationships. An individual relates himself in action to his society through the use of tools that he actively masters, or by which he is passively acted upon. To the degree that he masters his tools, he can invest the world with his meaning; to the degree that he is mastered by his tools, the shape of the tool determines his own self-image. Convivial tools are those which give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision…a convivial society should be designed to allow all of its members the most autonomous action by means of tools least controlled by others.”

Illich demonstrates the necessary connection between a critical perspective of self-awareness and active creation of Cyberpower through tools. When people become cognizant of their desired and imposed identities they are able to act with direction and conscience; they can envision the world as they wish it to be. Here we have a vision of society filled with empowered, self-directed people, who purposefully use tools largely of their own design or control. These participants connect with one another, not just in terms of communication or information sharing, but also through making and remaking[20] both content and the systems through which it flows. I see this as all three levels of Cyberpower, (1) they possess power, in the form of a repertoire of tools, skills, and creations, (2) they help to guide the investment of power in platforms and objects more actively and critically, and (3) they are power itself in an ideological sense because they are a greater stakeholder in the network of abstract forces that structure society. I think Robinson and Gauntlet would both agree with me in saying that they are also more likely to be happy and positively contribute to the social capital of communities.

I am not suggesting that in order to be digitally literate, a person must know how to create YouTube, in full. I am suggesting, however, that the more they learn about the inner-workings of YouTube as a black box, the better able they will be to use it effectively. For instance, understanding that video preview thumbnails are based on stills generated by an automatic parsing system which splits a clip into quarters allows a video creator to determine their own video advertisement images with precision. Knowing how to code a flash (web element) container that can play any kind of video gives a person more insight on a key efficiency of YouTube’s design. Understanding how the multiple streams for content of varying quality are downloaded to your local client, and how to save them permanently enables users to acquire the assets for remixing projects without having the original source. All of these undertakings become easier when you make your own black box. As Zittrain (2008) has pointed out, while the internet was constructed by people who all could help to generate its inner-workings, its mass adoption has led to a vast majority of increasingly ignorant users. The ‘ease’ of access is the dark side of a consumer model based on ignorance. Companies like Apple would prefer their users only be able to consume content on their terms, on their devices, and not be able to create it unless it goes through their own restricting information-control-overkill development and rights management (DRM) models. Apple’s worst nightmare is probably a body of users willing to critically interrogate their ethics and business model, as well as its foundational pro-marketization reproduction of information as a controlled commodity.[21] In fact, their nightmare does exist in a budding form, as the Linux and FOSS community.

I think this combination provides the beginning of an answer to Lessig’s fourth constraint: architecture. While Lessig talks mostly about the architecture of code as a structuring force, a sociological imagination-fueled creation ethic could probably battle oppressive ideologies knit into physical world objects as well. In sum, I think critical and creative digital literacy is constructive of Cyberpower that can play a role [G50] in (1) shaping the space of flows (Castells 1997), (2) reinvigorating the library in the public sphere (Buschman 2003), and (3) assisting the ailing public education system (Robinson 2011).

The question remains, how does this composition of theory roll into a research project?

As will be explained, I intend to approach this topic with targeted qualitative interviews and a limited series of case studies. Simply stated, I think this theoretical framework equips me to do this research well in two primary ways:
1) It alters and justifies the frame in which I ask questions about what is going on in libraries in ways that most previous studies have not: investigating programs, people, and policies, in addition to infrastructure like devices.
2) It supplies the scaffolding for my analysis of the data. In inspecting the relationships between all of these factors as they relate to digital literacy I will remain obligated to discerning social impacts in terms of Cyberpower.
Epistemological assumptions my scholarship depends on can be found in Appendix D[G52] .