Electracy

Electracy is a theory by Gregory Ulmer that describes the skills necessary to exploit the full communicative potential of a new electronic media such as multimedia, hypermedia, social software, and virtual worlds. According to Ulmer, electracy "is to digital media what literacy is to print". It encompasses the broader cultural, institutional, pedagogical, and ideological implications inherent in the major societal transition from print to electronic media. Electracy is a portmanteau of "electricity" and Jacques Derrida's term "trace".

Concept
Electracy denotes a broad spectrum of research possibilities including the history and invention of writing and mnemonic practices, the epistemological and ontological changes resulting from such practices, the sociological and psychological implications of a networked culture, and the pedagogical implementation of practices derived from such explorations.

Ulmer's work considers other historical moments of radical technological change such as the inventions of the alphabet, writing, and the printing press. Also, electracy is grammatological in deriving a methodology from the history of writing and mnemonic practices.

Ulmer introduced electracy in Teletheory (1989), and it began to be noted in scholarship in 1997. James Inman regarded electracy as one of the "most prominent" contemporary designations for what Walter J. Ong once described as a "secondary orality" that will eventually supplant print literacy. Inman distinguishes electracy from other literacies (such as metamedia), stating that it is a broader concept unique for being ontologically dependent exclusively on electronic media. Some scholars have viewed the electracy paradigm, along with other "apparatus theories" such as Ong's, with skepticism, arguing that they are "essentialist" or "determinist".

Pedagogy
Lisa Gye states that the transition from literacy to electracy has changed "the ways in which we think, write and exchange ideas," and that Ulmer's primary concern is to understand how that has transformed learning.

Electracy as an educational aim has been recognized by scholars in several fields including English composition and rhetoric, literary and media criticism, digital media and art, and architecture. Mikesch Muecke explains that "Gregory Ulmer's ideas on electracy provide ... a model for a new pedagogy where learning is closer to invention than verification." Alan Clinton, in a review of Internet Invention, writes that "Ulmer's pedagogy ultimately levels the playing field between student and teacher."

Ulmer's educational methods fit into a constructivist pedagogical theory and practice. He discusses the relationship between pedagogy and electracy at length in an interview with Sung-Do Kim published in 2005.