Critical
Responses | Informative
Summaries | Works Cited
Critical Responses: Criticism Summary
The text has three major themes: researching and documenting a variety
of culturally-determined, online literacy
practices; exploring and defining the postmodern
identities that occur within a webbed environment; and describing the
internationalism
and transnationalism within, and despite, the Web’s neo-colonialism.
The text's overall intentions and interests strike me as a valuable counterpoint
to the current assumptions about the Web, online literacy, and identities.
Nevertheless, Hawisher and Selfe readily admit that this text only presents
snapshots, and my discussions suggest that this text does prove the need
for further research (2).
Though the call for further research is a rhetorical move in academic
circles, in this text the call strikes me as fully justified. Where
the chapters present a wide range of methods for studying online literacy
practices around the world, a follow-up study could critically assess and
possibly systematize those methods. Where the chapters imply the
postmodern identities that occur through interaction within a webbed environment,
a follow-up study could more directly depict and analyze those identities.
Where the chapters demonstrate the internationalness of the Web, a follow-up
study could explore a non-national, culturally determined online presence,
such as considering the similarities and differences of Turkish and Iraqi
Kurds in order to discover the influence of nationality on online literacy
practices and identities.