"Multiliteracies for Inclusive Technologies: A Case Study on Location-Based Services and Domestic Violence Survivors"
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Jennifer Roth MillerJennifer Roth Miller is a student in the Texts and Technology Doctoral Program at the University of Central Florida. Jennifer's research interests explore the convergence of philanthropy, social justice, education, corporate social responsibility, and cause-based marketing in socially constructing collective views on issues such as technology, lifestyle, health, and community. ContentsLocation-Based Services & Privacy Location-Based Services & Privacy Cont. Domestic Violence Survivors & Geolocation: A Case Study Digital Literacy Possibilities for Domestic Violence Survivors Digital Literacy Possibilities for Domestic Violence Survivors Cont. |
Digital Literacy Possibilities for Domestic Violence SurvivorsSelber (2004) advocates for multiliteracies: functional, critical, and rhetorical literacies. Functional literacy refers to basic technology skills, which in the case of smartphone privacy would include the actual technical skills of how to access smartphone settings to restrict and control application access, as well as safe posting practices on social media. Critical literacy is a call for technology users to consider the implicit values, beliefs, and politics socially constructed and rhetorically shaped through interfaces and applications. In this case, it is understanding how indirect forces behind technology rhetorically contribute to the ways we use location-based services and technologies. The final literacy is rhetorical or reflective literacy, which allows one to achieve their potential for action toward social justice in rectifying what one discovers with critical literacy. For example, technology users may choose to only use ethical technologies or make certain choices in their phone settings. In a grander scheme, technology designers with rhetorical literacy may build inclusive programs, while educators may aim to foster multiliteracies in students. Selber’s work (2004) inspired a multiliteracies-informed analysis of several approaches to finding a safety and privacy solution for domestic violence survivors. The first approach is centralized, top-down teaching of digital literacy skills (Finn, & Atkinson, 2009). The second is the peer education based “popular technology” approach (Eubanks, 2011). The third is a smartphone application that serves as a tool to help survivors control their privacy (Walls, Dieterle, & Miller, 2016). Ultimately, analyzing these three approaches uncovered a better-informed combined possibility. Finn and Atkinson (2009) describe an earlier top-down digital literacy project to help survivors and organizations better understand how technology is used by abusers to control, monitor, and locate victims. The goal of the project was to educate survivors on how to safely utilize technology. Training was offered through individual and group presentations. Additionally, participants were surveyed before and after the presentation. Respondents reported learning technology safety skills, however many were more scared or confused after the education and needed more information. The surveys also indicated that survivors utilized technology at a high rate. The study suggested that funding and staffing are obstacles to providing more training. Peer education was identified as a possible solution. Eubanks (2011) presents “popular technology” as an alternative to top-down digital literacy skills education. Popular technology shifts the responsibility of teaching technology skills from organizations to peer education. The author shares examples where the people using the technologies developed their own digital literacy skills along with their peers according to their own needs and uses. Eubanks suggests organizations turn to a role of fostering “critical technological citizenship,” a social environment for learning and providing resources rather than centralized training. This turn was proven to develop skills that are more likely to stick and is a promising possibility for developing digital literacy skills in domestic violence survivors that would enhance safety. However, survivors need tools and multiliteracies education to start peer-led efforts. A research team at the University of Central Florida recently collaborated to create Safely Social, a smartphone application to ease location-based services’ effect on domestic violence survivors. In observing public activities of domestic violence organizations, the team found that because neither the survivors nor the organizations understood the technology fully or had the digital literacy skills to control it, survivors were forgoing the privileges of smartphones all together (Walls et al., 2016). At the time of a domestic violence incident, domestic violence organizations recommend that survivors give up their smartphones with geolocation technology to remain safe. Domestic violence organizations actually collect donations of old cell phones that don’t have geolocation capabilities for survivors to use. They do this because no one fully understands how and to what extent geolocation technology integrates with the phone and the public through social media sites. They only know that allowing location information to be posted publically is literally dangerous and sometimes even life threatening.
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