3 - Information Literacy in a Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Perspective

Summary

Introduction

Practice-theoretical information literacy research has conceptualised information literacy as a sociocultural (Lloyd, 2006) or sociotechnical (Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja, 2005) practice embedded in the activities of communities and domain specific practices rather than the ‘behavior, action, motives and skills of monologic individuals’ (Tuominen, Savolainen and Talja, 2005, 339). These understandings have opened a view on information literacy that acknowledges its complexity and the sociocultural features that enable the emergence of such practice in a specific site (Lloyd, 2010), explaining how information literacy happens (Lloyd, 2011). In this chapter, these understandings of information literacy are discussed from the viewpoint of mediated discourse theory (MDT), which can be characterised as a discursive theory of human action. Specifically, MDT can deepen the understanding of the relationship between discourse and action in information literacy practices and the way actions with information are mediated by a variety of material and symbolic tools in ways that are often unnoticeable to us. MDT as an approach can be useful in addressing the tensions between the individual and community-focused understandings of information literacy and the need to broaden the understanding of information literacy to better acknowledge the multimodality of information and information literacy practices. Furthermore, MDT not only provides analytical tools to understand information literacy but can also help identify actions ‘with potential to become tactics to change’ (Wohlwend, 2020, 14).

The core elements of mediated discourse theory

The central principles of MDT were introduced by linguist Ron Scollon (Scollon, R., 1998; 2001a; 2001b), who, with his colleagues, developed it mainly within the framework of mediated discourse analysis (MDA) and its methodologically oriented branch nexus analysis (NA) (see Scollon, S. W. and de Saint-Georges, 2013; Scollon, S. W., 2014). In their work, Scollon and colleagues have brought together theorisation from several research areas, including sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, literacy studies, practice theories and sociocultural approaches to psychology, and combined them in a unique way with an attempt to understand and explain human action, specifically focusing on its relationship with discourse.