1. Social Media Literacy: The
Need of a New Paradigm
Pieter Verdegem, Ghent University (Belgium) &
EMSOC

2. EMSOC, the project
• EMSOC (http://www.emsoc.be)
– “User Empowerment in a Social Media Culture”
– IWT project, 4-year
– 3 main research foci: 1) Inclusion, 2) Literacy &
3) Privacy
– Empowerment = “Enabling people to control their own lives
and to take advantage of opportunities” (Van Der Maesen,
2002)
• Our focus: Measuring social media literacy

3. Triple Revolution
(Rainie & Wellman, 2012)
1) Social Network Revolution
2) Internet Revolution
3) Mobile Revolution

4. Social media literacy?
“A group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that
allow the creation and exchange of User-Generated-Content”
(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p.61)
“Media literacy is the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and
create messages across a variety of contexts” (Livingstone,
2004, p.39)

5. Theoretical Framework
• Social theory of Pierre Bourdieu
• Cultural capital = “subtle modalities in the
relationship to culture and language” (Bourdieu,
1977, p. 82)
• Social media literacy = a new type of cultural
capital? (Cultural capital 2.0)
• The educational system: central role in
enhancing young people’s social media
literacy

6. Social media literacy in
education: Why do we need a
new paradigm?
2 central questions:
1) How can social media literacy be
integrated in the educational setting?
2) How can we measure the success of this
integration (i.e. measuring social media
literacy)?

7. Changing faces of media
literacy
ACCESS

8. Changing faces of media literacy:
converging approaches
Media literacy
Information literacy

9. The implications of the
participatory social media culture
(Jenkins et al)
(1) Applicability of approaches on media literacy to the
participatory social media culture
(2) Differences between the use of social media and other
media
(3) Shift from an exclusive focus on the receiver to a focus
on the interaction between the media (content) and the
active user

10. Towards a conceptual framework
of social media literacy

11. Cognitive competences

12. Practical competences

13. Affective competences: Attitudes
towards …

14. Social media literacy in the
educational setting
Communicate Create
content
Search for information Commodification

15. Concluding remarks
• The Triple Revolution is confronting us with new
challenges
• Cultural capital is unequally distributed in society
• Misunderstanding that all young people have extensive
social media competences
• More attention needed for cultural capital 2.0 (new skills
& competences)
• Central role for the educational system
• Question is how? New paradigm hopes to support
teachers in their duty to educate young people to
empowered citizens
• Our work: measuring social media literacy

16. Thanks!
E-mail: Pieter.Verdegem@UGent.be