The beginning

Nowadays information overloads us: television, radio and above all Internet. How to cope with all this? It is necessary to develop skills to understand messages and the intentions of their authors.

Stuart Selber has written a book called "Multiliteracies for a Digital Age" where he says, " one has to be more than a computer geek to claim computer literacy" . He shows three aspects in the definition of computer literacy. In my opinion, the first one is technical and the other two, social:

1. Functional Literacy refers to the computer as a tool and how to use it.
2. Critical Literacy is associated with the ability to understand and reflect about the relationship between technology and society.
3. Rhetorical Literacy allows people to react to the inherent influence of persuasion present in the messages of non-neutral power structures.

Selber says that academic institutions have the responsibility for developing this three-staged computer literacy and that the traditionally technical support is not enough.