International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

New information and communication technologies (ICTs) pose significant challenges for their users. They require the rapid development and continual updating of diverse skills, competences, and knowledge, from the most familiar to the brand new, and from the most basic to the highly sophisticated. In academic research, these skills and knowledge requirements are increasingly brought together under the rubric of information literacy. By using the term “literacy,” the skills needed to operate ICTs are related to the ability to read and write, although the concept is still being developed (→  Human–Computer Interaction ). The specific nature of key information literacy skills is still under debate. However, at a minimum these skills include the abilities to access, navigate, critique, and create the content and services available via ICTs. As these abilities become ever more critical to effective participation in employment, education, and society, both governments and researchers are finding that understanding, tracking, and enhancing them are of growing importance. The study of information literacy has developed separately from the study of →  media literacy , but the two traditions are beginning to converge. The information literacy tradition emphasizes the access, identification, location, evaluation, and use of information materials while the media literacy tradition generally ... log in or subscribe to read full text