ABSTRACT
When a respected scholarly journal published an article in 2006 stating that “college
English should be new media” (Rice, 2006, p. 127), it unambiguously acknowledged
the entrenchment of digital technology in the field of English studies. Testament to
this altered landscape is the evolution in outlook evident in the National Council of
Teachers of English’s 1970 Resolution on Media Literacy and its 2005 Summary
Statement on Multimodal Literacies. The Resolution is a two-paragraph call merely
to “explore more vigorously the relationship of the learning and teaching of media
literacy to other concerns of English instruction” (para. 2). More than 35 years later,
the Summary offers numerous definitions and potentialities of digital technology
for teachers and explores those “writing, design, and distribution processes that
were formerly apportioned to other experts” (Declarations Concerning the Unique
Capacities section, para. 15).
