Epilogue: digital capitalism - Rethinking digital literacy - Media education in the age of digital capitalism

Oct 15, 2026

Advocates of digital education emphasize the importance of young people developing digital media literacy, but the idea is often applied instrumentally and without coherent, comprehensive implementation. The paper argues for moving beyond a binary framing of digital media risks versus opportunities, and beyond narrow notions of digital skills and internet safety. It proposes a broader, more critical approach to digital capitalism and the everyday ubiquity of digital media. The discussion situates reflections as an epigraph to a special issue on digital learning.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

I. Introduction. Back to the future Introduction

Rethinking digital literacy in digital capitalism

From utopian internet visions to digital capitalism

Determinism, education tech rhetoric, and unmet promises

Technology use in schools and gaps with children's lives

Epilogue: digital the age of digital capitalism Epilogue: Rethinking digital literacy: Media education in the age of digital capitalism David Buckingham [ddbuckingham1@gmail.com](ddbuckingham1@gmail.com) Loughborough University, UK King’s College London, UK Abstract Advocates of digital education have increasingly recognized the need for young people to acquire digital media literacy. However, this idea is often seen in instrumental terms, and is rarely implemented in any coherent or comprehensive way. This paper suggests that we need to move beyond a binary view of digital media as offering risks and opportunities for young people, and the narrow ideas of digital skills and internet safety to which it gives rise . The article propose that we should take a broader and more critical approach to the rise of ‘digital capitalism’, and to the ubiquity of digital media in everyday life . In this sense, the paper argue that the well-established conceptual framework and pedagogical strategies of media education can and should be extended to meet the new challenges posed by digital and social media . This article presents some reflections as an epigraph of the special issue "Digital learning: distraction or default for the future", whose final result has allowed us to group a set of critical research and analysis on the inclusion of digital technologies in educational contexts . The points of view presented in this epigraph is also developed in more detail in the book "The Media Education Manifesto" (Buckingham, 2019) . Keywords Digital literacy; media education; digital education; digital capitalism D.Buckingham Digital Education Review-Number 37, June 2020-[http://greav.ub.edu/der/](http://greav.ub.edu/der/) 230 I. Introduction. Back to the future Introduction When it comes to digital education, policy-makers are often infatuated by fantasies about the future . Yet these fantasies have a history – and at times of change, it is important to look back as well as forward. It’s now sixty years since the first message was sent over the ARPANET, the precursor of today’s internet; and thirty years since the origin of the World Wide Web. As we know, much of this technology was initially developed for military purposes; but it quickly became surrounded by some very different ideas about how it might be used. When new technologies emerge, they are often greeted with a combination of hope and fear . In the early years of the internet, utopian views tended to prevail. These ideas emerged from the hippy counter-culture of the late 1960s: networked digital technology was proclaimed as a revolutionary force, a way of giving power to the people. Technology, we were told, would give us access to an infinite world of knowledge; it would promote new forms of creativity; it would encourage smallscale, artisanal businesses; and it would revive democracy. Over time, these early countercultural ideas about social revolution gradually merged with a new kind of entrepreneurial capitalist thinking. After the dot-com crash, the internet was rebranded as a‘participatory’medium (Web 2.0), and these utopian ideas became part of the new business model that I will be calling‘digital capitalism’. Of course, this utopian view is based on a highly deterministic account of technology. It's as though technology arrives from nowhere, by some magical process, and transforms society and individuals, almost irrespective of how it is used or who is using it. We can see some of the same ideas in education as well. Technology companies like Apple have been particularly skillful in targeting the education market with a similar kind of ‘cyber-utopianism’. Technology, we are told, will transform learning, empower students, and liberate teachers . It will automatically bring about more active, creative, student-centred forms of education: anybody who opposes it is simply a dinosaur . Even the most optimistic advocates would have to acknowledge

FAQs

Why does the paper say technology in schools often fails students?

It argues that school technology use is frequently narrow—focused on testing and data/management efficiency—and often does not connect with how children use technology outside school.

Oct 15, 2026

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