[inanimate alice & media literacy]

While working on the second Education Pack to accompany Inanimate Alice and to coincide with the release of Episode 4 (yay!) I'm researching various countries and their (sometimes very different) approaches to the teaching of new media writing/digital literature/electronic literature/born digital fiction... (insert term of your choice). I've recently come across an interesting publication: "A European Approach to Media Literacy in the Digital Environment" created by the Commission of the European Communities published on the 20th of December 2007. The report reminds readers that although media use is widely acknowledged as a key enabler, there is little understanding of how "the media work in the digital world, who the new players in the media economy are and which new possibilities, and challenges, digital media consumption may present" (p.2)



This EU document also presents a very detailed definition of media literacy including the notion of critical literacy. Some aspects of the definition have tinges of transliteracy, encouraging the use of different kinds of media and their role in daily life: