Carnivalesque: Staging postdigital literacy

Abstract

<p>Technology has revolutionised the concept of learning on social media, where platforms become virtual classrooms and self-made microcelebrities refashion teaching into multimodal performances. This article develops the idea of postdigital literacy through the Bakhtinian concept of carnivalesque. Postdigital literacy refers not merely to the <em>usage</em> of platforms for educational purposes, but to an <em>appropriation</em>, in the sense of leveraging platform affordances in creative ways to articulate online personae around literacy themes—often casting a critical glance at establishment values, such as ‘correct’ English or ‘standard’ Mandarin. Based on Moment Analysis and using examples of short videos from Instagram, <em>Douyin</em>, and RedNote, the article foregrounds ‘literacy shorts’ as an emerging genre at the intersection of language learning and media technology. It argues that underpinning these shorts is the ethos of the carnival, manifest as colloquialisms, vulgarities, parodies, hyperbolic gestures, and theatrical choreography. In staging literacy ‘from below’, as it were, microcelebrities and influencers engage their audience in a ludic and participatory mode of edutainment, transgressing traditional boundaries of education in exchange for views, likes, and shares. In a postdigital age where selves are reflexively curated for consumption, the phenomenon of literacy shorts exemplifies the commodification of literacy on social media and the continual impact of networked technology in shaping how literacy is performed.<br></p>