Subject to Address in a Digital Literacy Initiative: Neoliberal Agency and the Promises and Predicaments of Participation

Type of Work

Article

Date

Fall 2014

Journal Title

Signs and Society

Journal ISSN

2326-4489

Journal Volume

2

Journal Issue

2

First Page

203

Last Page

229

DOI

10.1086/677657

Abstract

Bakhtin’s concept of addressivity affords an investigation of why my students and I were frustrated by the seeming lack of a connection between our participation in a self-tutorial in preparation for a digital literacy initiative, on the one hand, and the benefits of the acquisition of digital literacy, on the other hand. More than one structure of addressivity emerged from the tutorial, such that my students and I found the one that provided clues to the benefits of digital literacy utterly irrelevant to the completion of the self-tutorial and future tutorials. Structures of addressivity identified herein demonstrate that the individuals involved in the self-tutorial are not poised to benefit from interdiscursive ties beyond the self-tutorial and future tutorials. Such benefits are relegated to organizations. This article thus locates what has been identified as neoliberal agency within the addressivity structures that underpin a digital literacy initiative.

Hamilton Areas of Study

Anthropology

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