ABSTRACT

Research in digital literacies is based chiefly on work in a number of different theoretical perspectives, including 'new literacies studies', sociocultural approaches to language learning, ecological approaches to language learning, and mediated discourse analysis. The foundational idea of digital literacies studies is that language learning is not a matter of mastering an abstract code or set of decontextualised skills, but of becoming competent in particular social practices. The dimension of mediation orients one to the fact that all social practices are mediated through 'technologies'. Social practices can only be mastered through interaction with others in social groups. Agency, however, is a complex issue, involving a range of social and cognitive processes including control, motivation, feelings of self-efficacy, investment, social power and status, 'speaking rights', and access to different kinds of resources. Increased convergence naturally leads to increased 'multitasking' and increased interactions between different kinds of social practices and different kinds of social actors.