Literacy, Culture, and Creativity in a Digital Era

Changing constructions of literacy in online contexts are situating reading and writing within everyday and popular culture activities while also facilitating highly specialized literate and creative activity. I define these two types of literacy as “little-l” literacy and “Big-L” literacy, drawing on distinctions of “Big-C” versus “little-c” culture and creativity, and then show how digital environments are changing writing space and creating new literacies of a third kind. The effects of electronic technologies on the processes and products of literacy, culture, and creativity require a rethinking of traditional views of culture and creativity to bring them up-to-date in the digital era, with implications for pedagogy.