Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices Vol 4:2 2010

Multiliteracies and teacher empowerment

Anthony James Rosenberg
University of São Paulo

Abstract
In this article I bring together two issues - one in favor of multiliteracies and the other in favor of
teacher empowerment - to argue that for the success of the former the latter is essential. I begin
by taking into account, under a perspective of literacy, changes in the presentation and
arrangement of information through new technology, especially the Internet. I consider the types
of messages the mass media employs, as well as its tendency to present them in the form of
entertainment. Considerations on the theory of multiliteracies and linguistic diversity follow, in
which I use some of Potter’s (2005) concepts on media literacy, together with ideas from the
New London Group (1996) on multiliteracies, to sustain the argument in favor of meaning-
making as a path to the empowerment of individuals. Considering that all individuals have goals
and driving forces, my argument is that the purpose of reshaping and improving literacies should
be that of empowering individuals to attain and maintain control of their own decisions, as well
as empowering them to interpret messages that may be aimed at doing exactly the opposite;
that is, to not interpret, but to accept them blindly as being the truth. Finally, as the onus of such
empowerment falls on teachers and education, I put forward the view that teacher education
programs must endeavor to prepare education professionals accordingly by empowering them to
make decisions regarding how this is to be achieved.

Traditionally, being literate referred to the ability to read and write in a standardized form of a
language. However, this definition has undergone a dramatic change, brought on by the rapid
advancements in society and the world over the last 30 years, especially technological
development. Literacy, and especially the teaching of it, is no longer a matter of standardizing
the use of a language.

Technological evolution has made it essential for people to have the necessary skills to be able
to communicate through, with and about the new means. In addition, it is also important that
people are equipped with the skills needed to negotiate and interpret the messages that are
used in new technology in order to make informed decisions and to identify messages that may
be harmful to them. The change in technology has been accompanied by a change in the
approach that technology producers have taken in terms of the public. While aimed at
disseminating products to a large number of potential buyers, communication to such buyers has
become less public and more private, or personal. The fact that new technology has become
more personal changes the way people act and react in communication. The advent of the
Internet has put the once passive participant of media communication (the reader, the television
viewer, the radio listener) into an active position in the transmission of messages. Nakata
compares television and the Internet.

The new communications media, moreover, are more personalizing in their very nature.
They draw you in, as an active subject in the meaning-making subject. Television
broadcasts out, while the Internet draws people in. Instead of being told things,
pointcasting allows Internet users to ‘personalize their newsfeed’ (Nakata,1999, p.145).

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Readers, viewers and listeners are now drawn in to be seen as partners or “users” in
communication. Users, especially of the Internet, not only personalize messages; they become
producers of communication due to the possibility of publishing anything they like. This can be
empowering, and it may even result in extreme cases of fame or success. For example, the case
of violin virtuoso Alex DePue,1 who, after publishing a two-minute video on You Tube, signed a
contract to tour the world with rock guitar star Stevie Vai. Or the case of Manuela d’Ávila, a
young Brazilian politician, who, in 2006, used the Internet to campaign for a seat in the House of
Representatives and achieved 271,939 votes – the most votes received by any candidate in
Brazil. Besides this, users can also interact with others through real time communication
software (e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol - VoIP), take care of banking and purchases, get a
college degree, and even create relationships with people they have never physically met – all
without leaving their homes.

However, when such empowerment is wielded inappropriately, it also can lead to public
rejection, humiliation, contempt and oppression. Such harmful use of the Internet can be
attributed to a lack of consciousness regarding how the Internet works, who controls it, what the
legal attributes of the Internet and its users are, what reactions are possible from publicly
revealing certain information, how messages can be misconstrued, how images and sound can
change the objective of a message etc. While the harmful use of the Internet stems from the
very nature of discourse, it is the far-reaching, all-encompassing, unreserved approach of this
means that enhances the level of harm that can be inflicted, intentionally or not, on another
individual. This translates, for literacy teachers, into a dramatic change in the communication
skills they have to foster and in how they develop critical literacy. For the Internet to be used as
a safe, just and democratic form of communication, people need to become Internet-literate.
Such a skill means being able to go beyond the mere negotiation and interpretation of
technological format; it means that users need to have the necessary skills to negotiate and
interpret register, discourse, codes and code shifting, and a wider-than-ever array of visual,
audio and iconic meanings, and that teachers have to prepare them to acquire such skills.

While the images (still and in movement), sound (voice, music and others) and iconicity
(symbols, signs and codes) of the Internet, combined with the newly allocated position of the
user and the instantaneous aspect of communication across time zones, traversing national
boundaries and diminishing distances, could be considered the democratization of
communication – especially in terms of numbers of people communicating – it must be taken
into account that it is still part of mass media (Luke, 2000, p. 78). For Potter, the word mass is
related more to the motives of the sender and not only the sheer numbers, which are merely a
result of successful mass media methods:

In a mass medium, the sender’s main intention is to condition audiences into a realistic
mode of exposure; that is, senders are much less interested in coaxing people into one
exposure than they are in trying to get people into a position where they will regularly be
exposed to their messages. Senders attempt this conditioning by making the exposures
efficient to the audience. Efficiency is achieved when the messages require as little cost
to the audience as possible while delivering maximum payoffs. The greater the message
efficiency, the greater the audience size. As the mass media increase the size of their
audience, their revenues also grow (Potter, 2005, p. 44).

The Internet is no different to television or any other form of mass media when it comes to
motives – while there are other objectives, its fundamental goal is to generate revenue for the
owners. Such revenue needs not be explicitly financial, but can be a payoff in the form of fame
or success, or even a means to facilitating some task. Either way, there is a gain for the

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producers of the message. Likewise, the Internet is no different in the types of messages it
presents to the public, which can be categorized into three areas: news, entertainment and
advertising. Each one of these categories, however, has its own particular purpose: to inform, to
offer enjoyment, and to sell, respectively. However, Potter argues that these intentions are not
so clear-cut, stating that the real intention is to provoke “a sense” that something is happening –
a sense that one is being informed, a sense that one is being entertained, a sense that
something is being sold – when in fact it may not be (2005, p. 45). That is, the nature of
messages has become more difficult for users to decipher. The combination of images, sound
and icons, coupled with the new forms of messages, often unclear or misleading in their
objective or intention – infotainment, docudrama, infomercial, advertorial, edutainment, factoid,
and disinformation (Wilder, 2001) – tend to mix ideas of what is real and what is not. Under the
guise of entertainment, for example, messages may be attributed an unearned and unconfirmed
credibility. The fact that unprepared users may be deceived in ways different than those
articulated by more traditional texts makes the Internet a form of communication that needs to be
addressed by literacy teachers.

The tendency of these messages to resort to an entertainment format should necessarily be an

aspect that literacy teachers incorporate into their pedagogies. Entertainment, broadly speaking,
aims at placing the user in a passive position. Internet entertainment, on the other hand, tends to
place most users in the driver’s seat of an interactive experience. Such an experience, however,
often limits the amount of choices made available (limited number of icons to click on, for
example), and simplifies the intellectual activity involved in negotiating throughout the event. A
sense of constantly being entertained could lead users to fall into a mode of “screening”. Potter
considers screening to be a mode of exposure that requires little or no effort from the user. Thus,
“screening out continues automatically with no effort until some element in a message breaks
through people’s default screen and captures their attention” (2005, p. 50). Such screening out
can place the user (back) into the position of a passive participant of media communication. With
users as passive agents, the producer of media messages is in control, choosing when and how
to break through the default screen. Quite often in mass media, such breakthroughs have a
commercial purpose. Thus, the audience is being entertained through “a pedagogy of
commerce” (Rideout, Roberts, & Foehr, 2005, p. 4). The rapid advance of technology has put
the user into what the Berkeley Media Studies Group and the Center for Digital Democracy call
“a new ‘marketing ecosystem’” (Chester & Montgomery, 2007, p. 13). With this, producers of
media messages, that is, media corporations, control not only what triggers are contained in the
messages sent, but also how users receive them. Thus, the need for users to become skilled at
how to negotiate and interpret the language of the Internet becomes apparent. If users become
familiar with the metalanguage necessary for this, they run a lower risk of becoming “receptacles
of transmitted content” (Kalantzis & Cope)2 that merely, and automatically, ignore underlying
messages. Knowing how to interpret such metalanguage empowers the user to become an
active responsible player in the configuration of their personal world and the globalized world,
intensified by the expansion of the Internet.

The technological evolution, especially that of the Internet, could be considered both the cause
and the effect of globalization. Either way, the globalization of information and communication
has turned both of them into economies; that is, they are related to obtaining and using
resources needed for well-being and power. Not so different from a financial economy, the
information and communication economies are created and transformed by actions taken by
individuals, companies, markets, governments, religions etc. Also not so different from other
economies, their variations affect the life of individuals, establishing and modifying not only the
structure of society, but also the influence and the power that each individual wields over his/her
surroundings. Therefore, being able to understand, negotiate, interpret and dominate the new

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language of these economies is an asset that could change the social situation of the one who
develops it, as it may allow them to structure their own social and professional future. This is in
keeping with the mission of education presented by the New London Group in its paper on
Multiliteracies. For the group of researchers, education has the purpose “to ensure that all
students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community,
and economic life” (New London Group, 1996, p. 9).

The researchers of the group argue in favor of a pedagogy for literacy that attends to the
multiplicity and diversity of the new world order – hence the name “multiliteracies”. With the
development of new technologies, communication channels and the media in general have
become multimodal at the same time that cultural and linguistic diversity has increased rapidly.
More than just a simultaneous occurrence, such multimodality can often be recognized as one of
the generating factors of such diversity. Due to this, professions are changing not only in terms
of jobs themselves, but also of how work is done within the context set forth by employers
(educational centers, corporations, the government, NGOs, hospitals etc). The profile of
professionals, consequently, has changed. Specialized workers no longer simply respond to the
needs of employers, who now seek multi-skilled personnel. “The old vertical chains of command
are replaced by the horizontal relationships of teamwork. A division of labor into its minute,
deskilled components is replaced by ‘multiskilled,’ well-rounded workers who are flexible enough
to be able to do complex and integrated work” (New London Group, 1996).3 Considering the new
structure of labor put forth by the authors, new professionals will have to have the competency
to negotiate and interpret the new language stemming from the multiplicity of work. Such
competency will have to incorporate the ability to understand and use not only the subtleties of
the new forms of communication, but also interpersonal language. A pedagogy for literacy that
focuses on these skills is more relevant in and for the life of students leaving school and heading
for the job market. With these skills, they will be better prepared for the workplace, and more
opportunities will be open to them. In addition, their power to negotiate and interpret the
channels of communication will be strengthened, which, in turn, may be able to protect them
from harmful situations in which a lack of literacy might prove fatal (poor comprehension of
instructions, for instance). Such skills, however, cannot be developed through passive activities.
For these abilities to become “transportable knowledge and skills” (Lo Bianco, 2000, p. 100) that
are adaptable and applicable to a variety of areas, negotiating and interpreting new forms of
communication, in a learning context, must simultaneously be participative and transformative.
The former means acquiring agency that, according to Giroux in an interview,

(…) draws attention to questions concerning who has control over the conditions for the
production of knowledge, values, and skills, and it illuminates how knowledge, identities,
and authority are constructed within particular sets of social relations (Babiak, 2006, p.
44).

Considering this, students share the power of making decisions together with teachers, actively
participating in their own learning and taking responsibility for their actions and results. They can
be involved in producing knowledge instead of merely receiving information. Such involvement
in the production of knowledge may lead to the development of abilities and cultivation of
principles, which would represent the true democratization of the teaching-learning process.

The other aspect, transformative, implies participating in meaning-making. Thus, participating in

the design of their own product (message, text, communication), the meaning-makers undergo a
transformation at the same time they transform the world (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, p. 205). With
the power to make decisions concerning their own learning, students involved in a participative
and transformative pedagogy run less risk of being conditioned to think in a pre-established way

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(in the case of a classroom, the way the teacher thinks is correct; in the case of the Internet, the
way the producers of sites want them to think) and have more opportunities to develop as
individual beings (that is, not conditioned or oppressed) that are socially responsible, especially
for their own actions. Janks (2000) defines this type of pedagogy for critical literacy as design in
which “domination or power, access, diversity and design /redesign are crucially interdependent”
(p. 181). The author argues that a project centered around a concept of design has the potential
to move people “beyond critique to action” (Janks, 2000, p. 179). If we consider “critique” as
having a more passive position (as opposed to an active one), its end, then, leaves “action” by
the wayside, and, hence, responsibility could easily be attributed to someone else. To move
from an approach of critiquing (without totally eliminating it) to an idea in which students would
take action and, equally important, take responsibility for those actions, some changes need to
be made. Both literacy teachers and educational systems are now being charged with the job of
changing the teaching of literacy in order to prepare students to

…negotiate regional, ethnic, or class-based dialects; variations in register that occur

according to social context; hybrid cross-cultural discourses; the code switching often to
be found within a text among different languages, dialects, or registers; different visual
and iconic meanings; and variations in the gestural relationships among people,
language, and material objects (New London Group, 1996).4

Based on this concept of literacy, the current educational system in Brazil, historically traditional,
needs to take a new course of action. For Cope and Kalantzis,5 John Dewey’s ideas on a more
progressive approach to education may be the path that needs to be taken. Comparing aspects
of both the traditional and progressive systems, the authors argue that certain common
principles are present in schools that take the latter approach. To better visualize this
comparison, I present the aspects in the table below:

Traditional System Progressive System

Imposition from above Expression and cultivation of individuality
External discipline Free activity
Learning from texts and teachers Learning from experience
Acquisition of isolated skills
and Acquisition of skills as a means of
techniques by drill attaining ends which make direct vital
appeal
Preparation for a more or less remote Making the most of opportunities of
future present life
Static aims and materials Acquaintance with a changing world

The progressive proposal expounds aspects that are more in tune with Janks’ concept of design
and foster an approach that is more dialectic and less positivist or behavioral. The curriculum is
amplified, allowing students and teachers to become active agents working together in the
teaching-learning process. Together, they design real activities with a real purpose in mind; thus,
school becomes relevant and not purely protocol. Contrariwise, the traditional system threatens
not only students but also teachers and schools. The increase of ideologies that are merely
instrumental gives emphasis to the technocratic approach in the education of teachers and in
the school curricula. Giroux warns

Concerning the current emphasis on instrumental and pragmatic aspects of school life,
several important pedagogical suppositions arise. They include: a preference to separate
conception from execution; the standardization of school knowledge aimed at

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administrating and controlling it; and the downgrading of critical and intellectual work of
teachers and students in favor of practical matters” (Giroux,6 2005, my translation).

If the role of education is to “ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow
them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life”, as presented by the New
London Group (1996),7 then it is the progressive system that fosters an approach that is more in
tune with the changes within the new world order. The advent of new technologies requires
critical follow up by people who are capable of negotiating and interpreting the new language
stemming from them, and who take responsibility for their actions. Democratizing actions inside
the classroom may be the starting point for cultural and social changes needed for students to
become active responsible agents in the new world order.

Still considering the mission of education, it is key to formal education, in all its forms, that those
charged with organizing and guaranteeing it are aware of the multiple “ways” that the desired
outcome is possible. Due to the multiplicity of such ways, these professionals are also given the
onus of contemplating the concept of multiliteracies which incorporates “the multiplicity of
communications channels and media, and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic
diversity” (New London Group, 1996)8. Such diversity in terms of language has given rise not
only to a wide range of formats for fast-changing communication, but also to the need to address
teaching methods for literacy in this new world order.

Given the general emphasis attributed to new technology in communication channels and the
media in most areas of society, especially in the sphere of entertainment, traditional teaching
methods for literacy are being deemed old-fashioned, stagnant and, hence, incompetent. The
multiplicity of the concept of literacy today demands an approach to the teaching-learning
process that extends far beyond the conventional set standards for reading and writing. For
example, the dynamics of the Internet – simultaneously integrated sound, image and written text
– requires that one develops multimodal skills in order to be considered literate in this context.
This type of literacy goes beyond that in which people understand the explicit message of a
written text, and focus on the individual interpretation of the meaning of a message, be it written,
in the form of an image or auditive. Individuals need to be prepared from an early age – as early
as they are exposed to the media – to make personal informed choices in today’s globalized
world. If not, they run the risk of becoming passive communicators, fixating on poor information,
and, consequently, being socially conditioned by information and message producers, mainly
the mass media. Education should aim at making people literate enough to prevent their lives
from being shaped and their decisions from being made for them by the media. They should be
empowered to consciously analyze, assess, categorize, induce, deduce, synthesize and
abstract when faced with information in the form of pre-packaged messages. And teachers now
are confronted with the challenge of revolutionizing literacy teaching to actively accompany
social changes, especially technological, so as to prepare, and be prepared, for the new settings
and linguistic possibilities. Teacher education, therefore, is bound by its inherent connection to
research and its social responsibility to society to embrace the new ground made in the area of
multiliteracies, critical pedagogy and education technology.

However, if teachers are to empower students in participative and transformative classrooms

within a progressive approach to education, then it stands to reason that teacher education
needs to take on the same approach. Some current programs for teacher development seem
quite concerned about including aspects of new technology and how to make it an active part of
regular practice in the classroom. However, it cannot be taken for granted that familiarizing
teachers with new technology and new teaching theories guarantees a transformation in
classroom practice, or the outcomes of it. The nature of the educator’s job in Brazil, especially

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the aspect of solitude (considering the equation is, generally, one teacher to one very large
class), means that classroom management decisions, that is, organization within the classroom,
are mostly carried out by the teacher individually. They are later implemented, also individually,
in the form of activities for students. Such heavy responsibility for running the class itself
contrasts with the restricted participation of teachers in more political and structural decisions
related to, for example, the design of courses. While the pedagogical project, the school
curriculum and, often, pedagogical decisions remain top-down impositions (from the State to the
school administration, to the teacher), teachers will remain responsible only for the day-to-day
coordination of the classroom, but not necessarily for idealizing, conceiving, producing, piloting,
and assessing the broad pedagogical actions in a more integrated fashion. Teachers are often
made accountable for the outcomes of education, but this argument can be countered with the
argument that they have no decision-making power with regards to the design of the pedagogy
to be employed. Teacher empowerment, for Melenyzer (1990, p. 3) is

the opportunity and confidence to act upon one’s ideas and influence the way one
performs in one’s profession. True empowerment leads to increased professionalism as
teachers assume responsibility for and an involvement in the decision making processes.

Responsibility for the results of a pedagogical approach, politically speaking, can only be
assigned if the responsibility for the design of said pedagogy lies in the same hands. A
distribution of responsibility can heighten teachers’ potential and give meaning to their actions.

In this context, for a multiliteracy proposal to have any possibility of being productively adopted
and implemented, courses, teacher education programs, training courses, recycling programs,
exams for teachers, public recruitment exams etc. will be more successful if they empower
teachers so that they can adopt the theory as a personal project for thinking and rethinking their
own teaching-learning process. For now, as mentioned above, teaching conditions (that is,
educational policies, decisions regarding educational resources, besides administrative
decisions) are generally imposed and rarely involve the actual teachers. The decision-making
power is concentrated in instances above that of the classroom, “leaving the teacher to perform
miracles” (Lankshear, Snyder, & Green, 2000, p. xix). Frequent generalization in teacher
education, coupled with discontentment from being restricted to the daily routine of the
classroom, tend to dilute the strength of a theory or a concept due to its macro approach. One of
the main reasons for discontentment for elementary teachers in Brazil is the lack of
consideration concerning the number of students in a classroom. Currently, there is a bill being
analyzed by the Senate to reduce the numbers of students in the classroom. Teachers rarely
have choices in matters such as how many children in the classroom, let alone other less
bureaucratic and more pedagogical issues. Teachers, according to Hirsch (Rebora, 2008)9,
complain about the “one-size fits all approach”. The author indicates the fact that teachers “do
not participate in the choice of opportunities for professional development” as being one of the
reasons for a lack of interest in new theories. Therefore, presenting the concept of multiliteracies
as a personal project, particular to each teacher, within the context of choice for design, rather
than an imposition of a new approach, may generate more engagement on the teachers’ part to
transform theory into practice. Perspectives created by empowered teachers, with the objective
of transforming them into practice, tend to engender involvement and, in its turn, successful
development.

Conclusion
In trying to marry the two main concepts, multiliteracies and teacher empowerment, I have
argued in favor of both for a successful approach to implementing a pedagogy of critical literacy.

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Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices Vol 4:2 2010

The overall aim is to improve education, especially literacy, making it more relevant and
democratic insomuch that it empowers people to have control over and to make informed
decisions regarding the messages they receive and produce. For teachers to provide learning
experiences of this nature for students today, I argue that it is essential for them [the teachers] to
undergo the same experience when participating in teacher education programs.

Based on the aforesaid, I maintain that for multiliteracies to be successful as a practice: a)

formal educational materials for both teachers and students should integrate awareness of new
media; b) non-formal educational materials in non-formal settings (e.g. chat rooms, Internet
sites, blogs, flogs, twitter etc) should be used by teachers as fodder for the teaching-learning
process; c) the pedagogy behind exams and testing for teachers should recognize the value of
teaching literacy through new media forms; and d) the pedagogy sustaining policies on teacher
education should consider the concept of teacher empowerment in conjunction with the
approach to multiliteracies in order to promote the success of both teachers and students in
becoming literate in the new world order.
1
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20070617-9999-lz1a17view.html Accessed on June 10,
2010
2
http://newlearningonline.com/ Accessed on August 28, 2009
3
http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_De
signing_Social_Futures.htm Accessed on June 10, 2010
4
http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_De
signing_Social_Futures.htm Accessed on June 10, 2010
5
http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-2-life-in-schools/john-dewey-on-progressive-
education/ Accessed on September 2, 2009
6
http://www.serprofessoruniversitario.pro.br/ler.php?modulo=7&texto=236 Accessed on June 10, 2010
7
http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_De
signing_Social_Futures.htm Accessed on June 10, 2010
8
http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_De
signing_Social_Futures.htm Accessed June 10, 2010
9
http://www.teachermagazine.org/tsb/articles/2008/03/01/02hirsch.h01.html Accessed June 10, 2010

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