Dr Gianfranco Polizzi 'Digital and Data Literacy'
From Claire Sowton
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Digital and data literacy: Comparing children’s understanding of data and online privacy with experts’ and advocates’ data literacy practices
Dr Gianfranco Polizzi, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham
Chair, Professor Judy Robertson
Abstract
This paper frames data literacy as a variant of digital literacy that requires functional and critical skills and knowledge about the internet and the broader digital environment. With this in mind, first I draw on secondary research to reflect on how children in the UK understand, and what they (do not) know, about their data and online privacy. Then, by drawing on my PhD research, I examine how digital experts and civic advocates in the UK – two groups of adults who are, respectively, highly digitally savvy and highly committed to using the internet for civic purposes – deploy data literacy skills and knowledge both in general and within civic life. I argue that while children tend to understand online privacy primarily in interpersonal terms but struggle to understand its commercial implications, experts and advocates often protect their online privacy by engaging in data literacy tactics that serve as acts of resistance against the ways in which the digital environment operates. After discussing how some of these tactics enhance their ability to evaluate online content, I reflect on what we can learn from their experiences with a view to promoting digital literacy through formal education.
Biography
Gianfranco Polizzi is a Research Fellow in the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham, where he works on character education in the digital age. Prior to joining the Jubilee Centre in September 2020, he completed his PhD in the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), his doctoral research explored the ways in which digital literacy and civic engagement shape one another. While completing his PhD, Gianfranco worked as a Research Associate in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia on a project exploring digital resilience among pre-teens. His academic interests, which lie at the intersection of media studies and education studies, include digital literacy, digital resilience, digital citizenship, civic engagement, and character education in the digital age.
Q&A
Questions posed during this event included:
I’m interested in the taken-for-grantedness of data
ubiquity. This is part of our present but needn’t be the future unless we want
it and in a way that we want it. Are
schools a good place perhaps to teach children that there are other ways to
understand the world?
Would it not be better to use a framework that can be used throughout the curriculum rather than tackling individual areas which just focuses on skills?
Did you struggle with the gap between the practical use of digital literacy and the ambiguous definition that is used in more theoretical research? If so, how did you manage this in your research? Is this something that you saw in the understanding of digital literacy in experts and advocates?
I wonder if you believe that the equipment used (Smartphone / MacBook) can affect the individuals online understanding?
I was struck by notion of lurking as a luxury. So how can we ensure that everyone has that “luxury”?
From what age are children able to understand a concept such as surveillance capitalism?
I was interested to know whether we can assume that spreaders of fake news are doing it 'on purpose' etc. if they do have a good understanding of digital and data practices?
I’m interested in the taken-for-grantedness of data
ubiquity. This is part of our present but needn’t be the future unless we want
it and in a way that we want it. Are
schools a good place perhaps to teach children that there are other ways to
understand the world?
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