Introduction Digital Divergence, Digital Complexity
Andrienne Lamberti, Anne Richards · 2017
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).