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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Chaise LaDousa
Chaise LaDousa*
Affiliation:
Hamilton College
*
Contact Chaise LaDousa at Department of Anthropology, Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Rd., Clinton, NY 13323 (cladousa@hamilton.edu).
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Signs and Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Fall 2014 , pp. 203 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Semiosis Research Center at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

Because of the promise of anonymity, I cannot thank by name the students, teachers, and administrators at the literacy centers and the administrators at the college who made the research possible. I can thank my college students because they cannot be identified with aspects of the argument. Thanks go to Ana Baldrige, Paige Cross, Trevor Howe, Madison Kircher, Chip Larson, Melissa Segura, Anna Zahm, and Grace Parker-Zielinski. For stimulating conversations on this work, I am indebted to Jim Collins, Paja Faudree, Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway, and Bonnie Urciuoli. I am also indebted to a reviewer whose especially close reading helped me to improve the article and to Richard Parmentier for suggestions and editorial guidance.

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