Taxonomy of literacies

Purpose – Digital technologies have transformed what it means to be literate and to experience literacy. Various literacies have been coined to capture this transformation including established literacies like computer literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, media literacy and internet literacy, to newer conceptions like transliteracy, metaliteracy and multimodal literacy. The purpose of this paper is to assimilate the various conceptions of literacy and literacy types is becoming increasingly more complex. There is a need for a taxonomy of literacies that reflects more recent developments, one that more comprehensively captures the current literacy landscape and one that might have affordances in the future. Design/methodology/approach – “Library and Information Science Abstracts” (LISA), “Education Resources Information Center” (ERIC) and “British Education Index” were searched for documents relating to digital technologies and literacy. Relevant documents were retrieved and reviewed. This was...