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Books by Colin Lankshear
A New Literacies Sampler, 2007
Chapter from book "A New Literacies Sampler". Reports a study of some early online memes from the... more Chapter from book "A New Literacies Sampler". Reports a study of some early online memes from the period 2001-2005. Uses prompt questions to analyze memes data from a functional language perspective, drawing loosely on linguistic functions derived from the work of Michael Halliday: ideational system, interpersonal system, ideological system. On the basis of the analysis a provisional typology of some early internet memes is advanced.
Data Analysis, Interpretation and Theory, 2020
This research guide addresses the difficulties novice and early career researchers often have wit... more This research guide addresses the difficulties novice and early career researchers often have with understanding how theory, data analysis and interpretation of findings "hang together" in a well-designed and theorized qualitative research investigation, as well as learning how to draw on such understanding to conduct rigorous data analysis and interpretation of their analytic results. Books that describe data analysis approaches and methods often fail to address the question of how to decide which ones are most appropriate for a particular kind of study, and why they are the best options. This book seeks to clarify these issues in a distinctive way. Chapter authors draw on a successful study they have undertaken and spell out their "problem area," research questions, and theoretical framing, carefully explaining their choices and decisions. They then show in detail how they analyzed their data, and why they took this approach. Finally, they demonstrate how they "translated" or interpreted the results of their analysis, to make them meaningful in research terms. Approaches include interactional sociolinguistics, microethnographic discourse analysis, multimodal analysis, iterative coding, conversation analysis, and multimediated discourse analysis, among others. This book will appeal to beginning researchers and to literacy researchers responsible for teaching qualitative literacy studies research design at undergraduate and graduate levels.
Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to business as usual approaches to te... more Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to business as usual approaches to teaching new literacies. DIY Media addresses this issue head-on, and describes expansive and creative practices of digital literacy that are increasingly influential and popular in contexts beyond the school, and whose educational potential is not yet being tapped to any significant degree in classrooms. This book is very much concerned with engaging students in do-it-yourself digitally mediated meaning-making practices. As such, it is organized around three broad areas of digital media: moving media, still media, and audio media. Specific DIY media practices addressed in the chapters include machinima, anime music videos, digital photography, podcasting, and music remixing. Each chapter opens with an overview of a specific DIY media practice, includes a practical how-to tutorial section, and closes with suggested applications for classroom settings. This collection will appeal not only to educators, but to anyone invested in better understandingand perhaps participating inthe significant shift towards everyday people producing their own digital media.
This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital lite... more This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital literacy. Their essays explore a diverse range of the concepts, policies and practices of digital literacy, and discuss how digital literacy is related to similar ideas: information literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, functional literacy and digital competence. It is argued that in light of this diversity and complexity, it is useful to think of digital literaciesthe plural as well the singular. The first part of the book presents a rich mix of conceptual and policy perspectives; in the second part contributors explore social practices of digital remixing, blogging, online trading and social networking, and consider some legal issues associated with digital media.
The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book "samples" wo... more The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book "samples" work in the broad area of new literacies research along two dimensions. First, it samples some typical examples of new literacies—video gaming, fan fiction writing, weblogging, role play gaming, using websites to participate in affinity practices, memes, and other social activities involving mobile technologies. Second, the studies collectively sample from a wide range of approaches potentially available for researching and studying new literacies from a sociocultural perspective. Readers will come away with a rich sense of what new literacies are, and a generous appreciation of how they are being researched.
Papers by Colin Lankshear
Communication and Media Studies, 2019
This article maps some key patterns associated with how internet memes are conceived and how onli... more This article maps some key patterns associated with how internet memes are conceived and how online meme practices have evolved and morphed during the period from 2000 to the present. We document the rise of internet memes during their early years as a broadly communitarian cultural engagement, mostly characterized by goodwill, humor, and an often “nerdish” sense of shared cultural identity. With the massification of internet access and participation in online social practices employing Web 2.0 and mobile computing capacities, changes occurred in how internet memes were conceived and created (e.g., image macro-generators). Since around 2012, many online meme practices have become intensely politicized and increasingly used for socially divisive and, often, cruel purposes. We explore some of these shifts and argue that what we call “second wave” online memes have been used as weapons in personal, political, and social-cultural wars. We conclude that internet memes scholarship would benefit from revisiting the original conception and theory of memes advanced by Richard Dawkins, and attending closely to what motivated Dawkins in this work.
The background to this paper is the empirical reality that digital meaning making and sharing tec... more The background to this paper is the empirical reality that digital meaning making and sharing technologies enable millions of people, speaking diverse languages, to interact and communicate within and across these languages on a daily basis. Brenda Danet and Susan Herring (2007) speak of the “multilingual internet” and how internet users are “members of one or more speech communities who bring to their online encounters shared knowledge, values and expectations for linguistic communication” (ibid.: 7). With the internet no longer confined to computers, smart phones and other mobile devices increasingly enable what many researchers call “transnational language flows”—the fluid criss-crossing, remixing and take-up of multiple languages within digital spaces by monolingual and multilingual speakers (Domingo 2014; Lam 2000, 2009).
We want to take a particular approach to understanding this phenomenon here, by looking at language in terms of “social language”, and with reference to a small range of “online encounters” involving participation in what we think of as “new literacies”.
In what follows, we first spell out our conceptions of “social languages” and “new literacies”. We then draw on three examples from new literacies research and learning contexts to show how social languages play out as people get things done in their everyday lives. We then discuss what we see as some findings and implications of the cases discussed in the body of the paper, and how these might relate to the future of language learning.
A brief overview of what research on new literacies might contribute to literacy education
Para muchos jóvenes, escribir con textos es sólo una forma de expresar ideas. Poco a poco están d... more Para muchos jóvenes, escribir con textos es sólo una forma de expresar ideas. Poco a poco están descubriendo que escribir con una mezcla de imágenes digitales, sonido y video es mucho más interesante y atractivo. Este tipo de remezcla digital es un proceso que implica tomar artefactos culturales y manipularlos y combinarlos en nuevos tipos de mezclas creativas. Este artículo describe cómo la remezcla en sí es un elemento clave en cualquier cultura sólida y democrática. También explora el estatus de la remezcla digital como norma nueva para la escritura popular mediante el análisis de una serie de prácticas de remezcla, como el photoshopping, el remix musical, la machinima, la fanfiction, los vídeos de música de anime, y las aplicaciones web híbridas o mashups. Nos centramos sobre todo en el arte y en el oficio de remezclar para poner de relieve la complejidad y la sofisticación de muchas de estas nuevas formas de escritura popular.
This paper is the Introduction to a new edited collection called "A New Literacies Reader" (Peter... more This paper is the Introduction to a new edited collection called "A New Literacies Reader" (Peter Lang 2013, edited by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel. It surveys the emergence of new literacies as a focus for academic research and publication and overviews the chapters that comprise the body of the book.
This revamps and extends the main conceptual chapter from the previous edition of New Literacies
A New Literacies Sampler, 2007
Chapter from book "A New Literacies Sampler". Reports a study of some early online memes from the... more Chapter from book "A New Literacies Sampler". Reports a study of some early online memes from the period 2001-2005. Uses prompt questions to analyze memes data from a functional language perspective, drawing loosely on linguistic functions derived from the work of Michael Halliday: ideational system, interpersonal system, ideological system. On the basis of the analysis a provisional typology of some early internet memes is advanced.
Data Analysis, Interpretation and Theory, 2020
This research guide addresses the difficulties novice and early career researchers often have wit... more This research guide addresses the difficulties novice and early career researchers often have with understanding how theory, data analysis and interpretation of findings "hang together" in a well-designed and theorized qualitative research investigation, as well as learning how to draw on such understanding to conduct rigorous data analysis and interpretation of their analytic results. Books that describe data analysis approaches and methods often fail to address the question of how to decide which ones are most appropriate for a particular kind of study, and why they are the best options. This book seeks to clarify these issues in a distinctive way. Chapter authors draw on a successful study they have undertaken and spell out their "problem area," research questions, and theoretical framing, carefully explaining their choices and decisions. They then show in detail how they analyzed their data, and why they took this approach. Finally, they demonstrate how they "translated" or interpreted the results of their analysis, to make them meaningful in research terms. Approaches include interactional sociolinguistics, microethnographic discourse analysis, multimodal analysis, iterative coding, conversation analysis, and multimediated discourse analysis, among others. This book will appeal to beginning researchers and to literacy researchers responsible for teaching qualitative literacy studies research design at undergraduate and graduate levels.
Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to business as usual approaches to te... more Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to business as usual approaches to teaching new literacies. DIY Media addresses this issue head-on, and describes expansive and creative practices of digital literacy that are increasingly influential and popular in contexts beyond the school, and whose educational potential is not yet being tapped to any significant degree in classrooms. This book is very much concerned with engaging students in do-it-yourself digitally mediated meaning-making practices. As such, it is organized around three broad areas of digital media: moving media, still media, and audio media. Specific DIY media practices addressed in the chapters include machinima, anime music videos, digital photography, podcasting, and music remixing. Each chapter opens with an overview of a specific DIY media practice, includes a practical how-to tutorial section, and closes with suggested applications for classroom settings. This collection will appeal not only to educators, but to anyone invested in better understandingand perhaps participating inthe significant shift towards everyday people producing their own digital media.
This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital lite... more This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital literacy. Their essays explore a diverse range of the concepts, policies and practices of digital literacy, and discuss how digital literacy is related to similar ideas: information literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, functional literacy and digital competence. It is argued that in light of this diversity and complexity, it is useful to think of digital literaciesthe plural as well the singular. The first part of the book presents a rich mix of conceptual and policy perspectives; in the second part contributors explore social practices of digital remixing, blogging, online trading and social networking, and consider some legal issues associated with digital media.
The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book "samples" wo... more The study of new literacies is quickly emerging as a major research field. This book "samples" work in the broad area of new literacies research along two dimensions. First, it samples some typical examples of new literacies—video gaming, fan fiction writing, weblogging, role play gaming, using websites to participate in affinity practices, memes, and other social activities involving mobile technologies. Second, the studies collectively sample from a wide range of approaches potentially available for researching and studying new literacies from a sociocultural perspective. Readers will come away with a rich sense of what new literacies are, and a generous appreciation of how they are being researched.
Communication and Media Studies, 2019
This article maps some key patterns associated with how internet memes are conceived and how onli... more This article maps some key patterns associated with how internet memes are conceived and how online meme practices have evolved and morphed during the period from 2000 to the present. We document the rise of internet memes during their early years as a broadly communitarian cultural engagement, mostly characterized by goodwill, humor, and an often “nerdish” sense of shared cultural identity. With the massification of internet access and participation in online social practices employing Web 2.0 and mobile computing capacities, changes occurred in how internet memes were conceived and created (e.g., image macro-generators). Since around 2012, many online meme practices have become intensely politicized and increasingly used for socially divisive and, often, cruel purposes. We explore some of these shifts and argue that what we call “second wave” online memes have been used as weapons in personal, political, and social-cultural wars. We conclude that internet memes scholarship would benefit from revisiting the original conception and theory of memes advanced by Richard Dawkins, and attending closely to what motivated Dawkins in this work.
The background to this paper is the empirical reality that digital meaning making and sharing tec... more The background to this paper is the empirical reality that digital meaning making and sharing technologies enable millions of people, speaking diverse languages, to interact and communicate within and across these languages on a daily basis. Brenda Danet and Susan Herring (2007) speak of the “multilingual internet” and how internet users are “members of one or more speech communities who bring to their online encounters shared knowledge, values and expectations for linguistic communication” (ibid.: 7). With the internet no longer confined to computers, smart phones and other mobile devices increasingly enable what many researchers call “transnational language flows”—the fluid criss-crossing, remixing and take-up of multiple languages within digital spaces by monolingual and multilingual speakers (Domingo 2014; Lam 2000, 2009).
We want to take a particular approach to understanding this phenomenon here, by looking at language in terms of “social language”, and with reference to a small range of “online encounters” involving participation in what we think of as “new literacies”.
In what follows, we first spell out our conceptions of “social languages” and “new literacies”. We then draw on three examples from new literacies research and learning contexts to show how social languages play out as people get things done in their everyday lives. We then discuss what we see as some findings and implications of the cases discussed in the body of the paper, and how these might relate to the future of language learning.
A brief overview of what research on new literacies might contribute to literacy education
Para muchos jóvenes, escribir con textos es sólo una forma de expresar ideas. Poco a poco están d... more Para muchos jóvenes, escribir con textos es sólo una forma de expresar ideas. Poco a poco están descubriendo que escribir con una mezcla de imágenes digitales, sonido y video es mucho más interesante y atractivo. Este tipo de remezcla digital es un proceso que implica tomar artefactos culturales y manipularlos y combinarlos en nuevos tipos de mezclas creativas. Este artículo describe cómo la remezcla en sí es un elemento clave en cualquier cultura sólida y democrática. También explora el estatus de la remezcla digital como norma nueva para la escritura popular mediante el análisis de una serie de prácticas de remezcla, como el photoshopping, el remix musical, la machinima, la fanfiction, los vídeos de música de anime, y las aplicaciones web híbridas o mashups. Nos centramos sobre todo en el arte y en el oficio de remezclar para poner de relieve la complejidad y la sofisticación de muchas de estas nuevas formas de escritura popular.
This paper is the Introduction to a new edited collection called "A New Literacies Reader" (Peter... more This paper is the Introduction to a new edited collection called "A New Literacies Reader" (Peter Lang 2013, edited by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel. It surveys the emergence of new literacies as a focus for academic research and publication and overviews the chapters that comprise the body of the book.
This revamps and extends the main conceptual chapter from the previous edition of New Literacies