ABSTRACT
Th e introduction of digital and electronic representation and communication technologies in the arts, popular culture, education, and cultural heritage has evoked strong and oft en oppositional reactions with respect to learning and literacy. Some have welcomed the educational challenges of digital culture and emphasize its possibilities for individual emancipation and social transformation in the new media information age (Gee, 2003). From this perspective, the traditional cultural consumer before the digital revolution is perceived more or less as a “passive” recipient and reader of static and fi nished cultural products that promoted a formal type of end-oriented learning and literacy through books, paintings, or fi lms with discrete themes, meanings, and ideologies. Interactive digital cultural objects such as websites, DVDs, or online gaming environments are welcomed as unique forms of literate representation where meaning is negotiated and constructed because users can manipulate, enter, explore, perform, or even partially create their own forms of literary and representational content (e.g., blogs, Wikis, YouTube, and Facebook).
