Electronic Language and Technacy

The original dissertation where the term Technacy was introduced is now online on this site. Simply follow the navigation links to each of the chapters.

During the period 1989 to 1996, the period of time through which the concept of Electronic Language was being formulated, the term 'technacy' was used by myself and my supervisor to identify that activity which human beings encountered when working with Electronic Language. In several presentations I completed in 1992 through to 1994, I used the term several times. Amongst the many people attending the various presentations were a group of people who then popularised the term througout educational circles and then in government circles when referring to education.

The way I use the term is much tighter and specific than is used in educational circles today. In the age when oral communication was the dominant way people communicated in society the skills of 'oracy' were those that allowed people to participate in social activities. After Plato, when reading and writing became the dominant means of communication people needed to learn the skills of 'literacy' to participate in society. Through my dissertation I introduced the notion that since computers have been used in connected networks, and computer-to-computer communication is beginning to dominate, people in this age need the skills of 'technacy'. Specifically 'technacy' is about communicating in this age, using computers to build texts, using computers to decode texts -- not always specifically the desktop or laptop computer, often using computer driven tools to communicate, such as a computer driven video machine such as DVD or the likes.

In educational circles the term 'technacy' is used in a much wider sense -- the cultural use of any technology is included in the sense that Seeman & Talbot use it in their article. Since most technologies in science and technology is computer driven, this is perhaps an acceptable sense. However, many uses of the term even refer to uses of technological outside of computer and computer driven tools. This, I feel, is taking away from the leap in understanding made through my work where I considered we needed to separate technological activity from technological activity using computers when they enable communication with other computers and other people through computers.

Cultural activities that are technate activities include working with email, using instant messaging services (on a computer such as Instant Messenger, ICQ and on mobile telephones where SMS is used), weblogs, websites, and other forms of communication where the message is composed on the computer and decoded on the computer and where computer operation is part of the composing and decoding processes. This is 'technacy' in the original way it was conceived. 

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