The uses of digital literacy


Digital literacies uses have grown abundantly over the years and made it’s way into popular culture in terms of it’s uses in social media applications and mainly education. Digital literacy has been transformed by the constant improvement of technology allowing it to to evolve from just reading and writing to now ”A form of hands-on productive expression, taught by and within the milieu in which it is deployed, using multi-platform devices to ‘write’ as well as ‘read’ electronic media.” (Hartley 2009, p. 21). This quote gives us reasoning as to why digital literacies were to be taught across Australia in a time where technology was rapidly improving and changing and to be taught in a way that encompasses many different aspects of intelligence. This shows how people’s perceptions of digital literacy in different fields began to change.

People's thoughts on the media they need throughout their day to day life.
(Dennis 2017)

(Farmer 2005) explores the theme that being digitally literate contributed to teenagers feeling included in terms of learning in today’s education system. This would begin to show why digital literacies are growing just as fast as technology is and how consumers are forced to evolve in terms of them being socially excluded from certain technologies. This relates to the course in general showing how significant digital literacy is and how it’s able to be used in many different facets of intelligence including economics, finance, design and in the film and music industries.

Digital literacy can be described as something that breeds innovation and creativity amongst teenagers, families, businesses and places of learning. Through John Hartley’s description of how digital literacy is able to breed creativity through using an array of different tools in different forms of media, this shows how important and how much of a necessity it is to the population. ”In the modern world, language is not the only important communication system. Today, images, artefacts, and many other visual symbols have gained in significance. ”(Marsh 2005, p. 203). This quote describes how involved digital literacy is in all societies and the expansion of it into everyday literacy and language.

The issue of trying to expand digital literacy across Australia’s public helps us understand digital literacy because of the reasoning as to why it’s so important as it can make a huge impact financially and culturally. I believe Hartley’s argument in it’s entirety pushes for the widespread use of digital literacy in order to educate teachers and people put into teaching roles in businesses across Australia so that the education process can be modernised. This way educators and teachers can improve their knowledge and life skills which are required to understand digital literacy and eventually spread it across the country in different industries.


Hartley, J. 2009, The Uses of Digital Literacy, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Farmer, L. (2005). Digital inclusion, teens, and your library. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.

Marsh, J. (2005). Popular culture, new media and digital literacy in early childhood. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Dennis, Z. (2017). Why is digital literacy important for marketers?. [image] Available at: [Accessed 1 Sep. 2017].


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