Research line 1: Changing Literacies
Several research groups in Utrecht have been studying the historical impact of new media technologies on social participation, from the Middle Ages through the invention of print and film, to the digital technologies and computer games of today. This expertise will now be pooled to study comparatively one of the most fundamental factors in shaping the relationship between individual citizens and cultural practices and in demarcating social, generational and cultural differences: the ability to deal with media as producers of content or interpreters of it (media is understood here in a broad sense to include languages, texts, images, and rituals as carried by historically variable technologies). Since the available media are constantly changing, moreover, the ability to use a medium precedes the codification and regulation of the competence needed to use it ‘correctly’ and ethically. Thus ‘literacy’ is always being redefined and contested because of the stakes in terms of power, status, trust, and authority that it brings with it. Our aim is to develop a more systematic and sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of literacy that will contribute to formulating guidelines for the future (media education, discussions relating to freedom of speech, development media technologies).
Participating groups
Media studies, medieval studies, textual culture, art history, musicology, management of meaning
Steering committee
Related projects
Changing Literacies events 2011-2012
Download the events programme (pdf)