August 01, 2008

jason fortuny and social media literacy

Somewhere in me I have a thousand word post on the need for social media literacy education in lower education[1]…but for today I’ll just quote Jason Fortuny in the everywhere-linked New York Times piece on Internet trolls.

“You seem to know exactly how much you can get away with, and you troll right up to that line,” I said. “Is there anything that can be done on the Internet that shouldn’t be done?”

Fortuny was silent. In four days of conversation, this was the first time he did not have an answer ready.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have to think about it.”

What’s the old standby? There’s a fine line between clever and stupid?

[1] In short, “media literacy” was focused on creating smarter media consumers; understanding how media’s produced and distributed, the biases behind it, etc. (See also deconstructionism, etc.) “Social media literacy,” on the other hand, needs to be focused on creating smarter media producers, who understand the ramifications of a hyper-connected zero-cost-of-distribution world. (See also Star Wars kid.)