National Writing Project

Reading in a Participatory Culture

Date: October 24, 2013

Summary: This show brought together authors of Reading in a Participatory Culture (2012) and the complementary digital book Flows of Reading to discuss what it means to be a reader and writer in an increasingly participatory culture. Both books exemplify an expanded concept of the term "text" and model a new type of reader—one who reads across different media and understands reading as an act of sharing, deconstructing, and making meaning. We hope this helps open a conversation about what "counts" as reading and all the kinds of reading we perform in our everyday lives.

 

Excerpt from Show

Erin Reilly, Creative Director & Research Fellow at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab , on changing our definitions of what can be counted as reading:

We often denote reading with traditional print literacy and books. Not that we have anything against books, but sometimes for kids of the digital age, the way they begin to understand and identify as a reader is to let them realize that they are reading when they're actually looking at comic books or graphic novels, or reading the game that they're playing on the Wii or Xbox, or reading the movie that then extends to the book or extends to even posters out on the wall. Every one of these types of platforms are ways that we engage in reading."

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Duration: 1 hour

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Right-click (PC) or Control-click (Mac) to download "Reading in a Participatory Culture."

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