User:Jialeijiang/sandbox

Here's my subpage where I'm drafting my article: User:Jialeijiang/sandbox/articledraft

Writing in the age of communication technology
Aligning with the notion of "affinity space," composition scholars also coin the term "cultural ecology" to examine the complex social and cultural contexts that shape the development of technological literacy. Drawing from the literacy narratives of two participants, Hawisher and Selfe synthesize five themes emergent from the cultural ecology of literacy, or the "cultural, material, educational, and familial contexts" that shape and are shaped by literacy development. The five themes of cultural ecology pinpoint that technological literacy goes through life spans, that literacy provides the medium for people to exert their agency, that literacy occurs and develops both within and outside of school contexts, that the conditions of access influence people's literacy development, and that literacy practices and values transmit via family units. Kristine Blair further complicates "cultural ecology" by pointing out the positive impacts of cultural conflicts in constructing online discourses and political discussions, while at the same time warning that students may not undergo transformation through exposure to the conflicts. Also looming behind the issue of culture in computer and writing is the digital divide. Cynthia Selfe points out the ways through which gaining access to technological literacy is situated in unequal social, cultural, economic, and political situations. As she writes, "computers continue to be distributed along the related axes of race and socioeconomic status and this distribution continues to ongoing patterns of racism and to the continuation of poverty." To address the digital divide, Selfe calls upon educators and compositionists to rethink computer literacy as a political act that requires paying critical attention to inequality issues and taking political actions in specific disciplinary contexts.