Informal learning, online literacies and out-of-school literacies
The popular social networking site Facebook shows little to a visitor who does not have an account. The iconic blue and white design devotes most of the page to an image of orange silhouettes connecting across the world with the title “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Across the page, empty fields beg for you to complete them with your first name, last name, e-mail, password, gender, and birthday. The only green on the page is the button to click to “Sign up” for this account. It repeats, “Sign Up: It’s free and always will be.” (Despite any chain repost statuses announcing that Facebook will be charging starting on _______ if you don’t do this, that, or the other thing.)
Once an account in created, users navigate within a world of profiles for people and things. Users are first taken to their homepage, a constantly updating news feed, like the ticker at the bottom of CNN, but with photos, status updates, relationship changes, and links. Nearly everything is interactive, hyperlinking to the actual page, allowing you to comment or “like” the item, and using algorithms to predict what you consider “Top News.” The top blue bar allows for you to see friend requests, message, notifications (of ways others have interacted with you on Facebook), a search bar, a link to your profile, and a link to your homepage. Directly below, Facebook asks you to update your status, add a photo/video, or ask a question—again, focusing on interaction.
To be literate on Facebook is to interact. Facebook is a place to connect and share, particularly with people you already know and about the things you are already doing (though there are options to create unique online content, not merely reflect real life). Using Facebook is one of many “socially mediated ways of generating meaningful content through multiple modes of representation for dissemination into cyberspace.” (Alvernman 2008, definition of online literacies)
As the site updates, a user may choose to read new content posted by Facebook or outside writings about the site. More likely, trial and error, combined with forwarded how-to status updates, will help a user become literate. This includes ever-changing privacy settings, what types of content can be created, how to create it, and how to share it.
Facebook, as an online literacy, falls in the long line of l(IT)eracy, as described by Bill Green in 1988 and referenced by Helen Nixon in 2003. Participating in the site, being literate, involves operational and cultural dimensions, and sometimes works itself out in the critical dimension. Being able to operate in Facebook is the first level of literacy. While skills from other online sites, from hyperlinks to individual profiles, transfer into this new site, it does require some new vocabulary and skills to operate within its domain. As a modern version of the 15 year old boy's internet chatting and web authorship, it can be analyzed in the cultural dimension for how it used to make meaning in the world. Such research delves into "how people use the media for specific social purposes inside and outside schooling and in the intermediary spaces and places between them." (Nixon) The critical dimension is often seen as we repurpose Facebook for other tasks, be it within Facebook, a redesign, or an off-line retooling.
Much of the new vocabulary needed to interact with people on Facebook has become mainstream over the past 6 years. Friend someone. Like. Comment. Poke. (Yes, the poke does still exist, and I know how to do it. Just ask the three friends I poked while “researching” Facebook for this assignment.) Perhaps the prolific use of Facebook as an online literacy is what moved this language into daily conversation, giving new meaning to these English words. “According to a report released in December 2007 as part of the PEW Internet & American Life Project,” cited by Alverman, more than half of young adults surveyed who have internet access have created online profiles at sites such as Facebook and MySpace (9). Since 2007, Facebook use has grown exponentially, thus literacy in the online realm has transferred into vernacular in everyday life.
Even the composition of Facebook has affected visual culture. School bulletin boards and yearbooks make many references to the iconic blue and white layout of Facebook. Some speculate that the uniformity and clean-design of Facebook is part of its success. It appears more professional than MySpace, eliminating personalized backgrounds and songs 
to create a cohesive experience. The new format, Timeline, is an attempt to make Facebook more visually appearing with large pictures and events organized graphically (similar in layout to pinterest, though it only shows the content it thinks you would deem important). Timeline allows for more customization, allowing users to highlight events in their life and hide others from their profile. Still, this is a basic format for the layout and color scheme of the profiles is uniform and relates to the overall Facebook brand, an online literacy site that has worked itself out into offline iterations.
Assignment: Identify an online literacy site or out of school literacy site. Follow Terry Barrett’s three-step model of interpretation of “What do you see? What does it mean? How do you know?” to interpret the site.
References:
Alverman, D. E. (2008). Why Bother Theorizing Adolescents’ Online Literacies for Classroom Practice and Research? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52(1), 8-19.
Nixon, H. (2003). New research literacies for contemporary research into literacy and new media? [online version]. [Supplement to Hagood, M.C., Leander, K.M., Luke, C., Mackey, M., & Nixon, H. (2003). Media and online literacy studies (New Directions in Research). Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 388–413.] Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.38.3.4
