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The digital platforms now mediate most of the actions we take when reading news, watching videos, buying goods, finding ways, chatting people, etc. The growing influence of some, such as Google, Amazon or Facebook, raises both hopes (e.g. freedom, economy, etc.) and concerns (e.g. competition, surveillance, etc.). These tensions propel us to invent better ways to discuss the recent and rapid transformations brought by such platforms. The challenge is, both, to make sense of the main social and technical processes that shape these digital platforms and to design situations in which their consequences become discussible, for anyone concerned. Thus, with the hope of addressing these issues, we sought to bridge recent research led in digital media education, about digital literacy and critical education, as well as in science and technology studies, about engineering practices or digital infrastructures. We decided to focus on the recommender systems at the core of most of these digital platforms. They promise to provide, both, a unique algorithmic technique for enabling users to orient themselves amidst the wealth of available information and a unique business strategy to keep users engaged with the platforms’ contents and advertisements. They need to be approached, both, as technical infrastructures, which foster interactions between specific users and specific items, and as media interfaces, which partly automate the editorial process. The tension between, on the one side, the opaqueness of their functioning due to technical complexity and business confidentiality and, on the other side, the significance of these systems for the information we exchange and the actions we take, need public debate. The educational challenge lies in making sense of how these social and technical dimensions mingle. To address this problem, we devised an educational activity, titled “In the shoes of an algorithm”, that would enable people to understand and critically discuss the problems

À partir d’observations empiriques réalisées dans des écoles primaires, les chercheuses en éducation et en communication discutent des métaphores employées par des groupes d’enfants pour désigner et qualifier de petits robots dans un contexte d’apprentissage. Elles montrent en particulier que la métaphore du vivant est utilisée de façon quasi naturelle et neutre, et que la figure contribue à reproduire des rapports de domination très actuels (genrés, notamment). Reconnaître et mieux comprendre les usages figurés et les enjeux sous-jacents de la métaphore du vivant constituent pour les autrices une première étape dans le développement d’une éducation critique aux robots.

The successive integration of the younger generations into the political body is important for the proper functioning of our democratic societies and the development of individuals’ sense of belonging to the wider community. However, in the last decades, various studies have raised concerns about the political disengagement of young people and have investigated the development of new, non-institutionalised or media-based forms of engagement. In the information and communication sciences, and specifically in the field of media literacy, studies postulate that media education could support active citizenship among young people. In particular, these studies seek to understand the influence of educational activities, and the media competences they develop, on the (actual or potential) civic participation of adolescents and young adults. In line with these studies, we wonder: What is the link between media literacy and civic engagement? In a distinctive way, we choose to focus on actual situations of civic engagement and seek to understand what role the media play in them. Our PhD thesis examines the link between young adults’ (25-30 years old) civic engagement within a self-organised group and their media literacy (considered from the perspective of practices). We mobilise a qualitative and comprehensive method, which combines mainly observations and interviews, to study two civic groups located in French-speaking Belgium, namely in Walloon Brabant (first fieldwork) and in Brussels Region (second fieldwork). The empirical work carried out in the first fieldwork enables us to describe the media practices of civically engaged young adults and to develop a better understanding of the Belgian French-speaking civic landscape. The second fieldwork enables us to understand the way these media practices are embedded in broader social practices, and to discover how the young adults studied integrate themselves into the civic group, invest time and energy in it, participate as in, L’intégration successive des jeunes générations au corps politique est importante, car elle permet le bon fonctionnement de nos sociétés démocratiques et le développement d’un sentiment d’appartenance des individus envers la communauté plus étendue. Cependant, ces dernières décennies, divers travaux scientifiques s’inquiètent du désengagement politique des jeunes, et s’intéressent au développement de nouvelles formes d’engagement, non-institutionnalisées ou médiatiques. En sciences de l’information et de la communication, et spécifiquement dans le champ de la littératie médiatique, des études postulent que l’éducation aux médias pourrait favoriser une citoyenneté active des jeunes. Ces études cherchent notamment à comprendre l’influence des activités éducatives, et des compétences médiatiques qu’elles développent, sur la participation civique (effective ou potentielle) des adolescent·e·s et des jeunes adultes. Dans la lignée de ces recherches, nous nous interrogeons : Quel est le lien entre la littératie médiatique et l’engagement civique ? De façon distinctive, nous choisissons de nous intéresser à des situations concrètes d’engagement civique et cherchons à comprendre le rôle que les médias y jouent. Notre thèse de doctorat porte sur le lien entre l’engagement civique de jeunes adultes (25-30 ans) au sein d’un groupe auto-organisé et leur littératie médiatique (envisagée sous l’angle des pratiques). Nous mobilisons une méthode qualitative et compréhensive, mêlant principalement des observations et des entretiens, afin d’étudier deux groupes civiques situés en Belgique francophone, dans le Brabant wallon (premier terrain) et en Région de Bruxelles-Capitale (second terrain). Le travail empirique réalisé au sein du premier terrain nous conduit à décrire les pratiques médiatiques de jeunes adultes engagé·e·s, et à mieux appréhender le paysage civique belge francophone. Le second terrain nous permet de comprendre la façon dont ces pratiques médiatiques s’insèrent dans, (COMU - Information et communication) -- UCL, 2022

Recommendation algorithms play an important role in the current media landscape by fostering interactions between users of digital media platforms and media content. The growing concern with recommendation algorithms raises important questions for media educators who emphasize critical analysis of media content and creative production and are required to develop media education initiatives focused on a critical understanding of digital platforms and their underlying technical infrastructures. What are teenagers’ current perception and experiences of recommendation algorithms? What should be the key issues these initiatives should address, and how should they be addressed? The "In the Shoes of an Algorithm" project approached these questions through design-based research (DBR). This project led to the creation of a series of pen-and-paper games designed to (1) help teenagers share their daily experiences of recommendation algorithms to identify core issues that should be addressed by media educators and (2) to foster a better understanding of key issues related to recommendation algorithms used by digital media platforms. The project was initiated in Belgium and expanded as an international program, in collaboration with South- Korean researchers and practitioners.

Based on the analyses conducted in the LITME@WORK project we will now turn to the question of how digital media literacy (DML) can be further integrated in team and distance work structures and practices in order to support effective, stimulating and meaningful ways of working. In this chapter, we therefore provide a range of recommendations for policy and practice. The recommendations formulated here are in the first instance meant for those who seek to foster DML at work – no matter whether they inscribe themselves in a classic celebratory NWOW discourse or not. These recommendations are: 1) treat competences as abilities to perform particular practices rather than abstract values; 2) use the DML matrix in a reflexive way; 3) (re)consider the organizational design of teams as a strategic factor for organizations; 4) acknowledge the value of articulation work in hiring and career development; 5) focus the team leader’s role on facilitating a shared understanding of teamwork and supporting distributed articulation work; 6) re-design training and evaluation initiatives beyond individual practices, operational skills and digital tools; 7) integrate the development of DML in a more balanced discourse about organizational change.

This chapter introduces the book that present the results of the LITME@WORK project. LITME@WORK asked the following research questions: (1) how is digital media literacy (DML) addressed and practiced in today’s office work and (2) how can DML be further integrated in emerging distance teamwork structures and practices in order to support effective, stimulating and meaningful ways of working. Starting from these questions, LITME@WORK has pursued four objectives: (i) to understand changing work environments and their DML requirements, (ii) to develop a systemic approach to DML in office distance teamwork, (iii) to provide resources for societal and policy stakeholders, and (iv) to contribute to research efforts in relevant fields of research.

In this chapter we address key organizational dimensions and challenges for digital media literacy (DML) in collaborative and distance work. Starting from the insights developed in the LITME@WORK project from a variety of research approaches on DML in collaborative and distance work, we build bridges between the different chapters that cover the following themes: (1) digital media competences in collaborative and distance work; (2) the concept of “newness” in discussions of DML and new ways of working (NWOW); (3) DML as a social construct; (4) implications of collaborative and distance work for well-being; (5) the issue of digital (social) inclusion; (6) the role of technology; and (7) management in team- and distance work. These issues were selected on the basis of their salience in contemporary debates on office work and their relevance for the different theoretical and empirical approaches applied in the project.

Digital technologies have taken a central place in the daily lives of office employees and have become the main support for their collaborative activities. At the same time, teleworking has gradually become commonplace within teams and is now deployed in many forms: teleworking, mobile work, inter-site collaboration, workspaces without assigned desks, and so on. These changes in the world of work reveal new issues in the field of information and communication sciences. In particular, they are an important issue for the study of workers' media literacy and invite us to focus on the competences they need to mobilize to adapt, accomplish their missions and succeed in these particular professional environments. In this context, the outcome of my doctoral thesis was to propose a definition of collaborative media competences based on the observation of practices of workers confronted with collaborative activities supported by ICT. The results of the analyses led to the development of a matrix crossing the collaborative activities involved in technology-supported telework with different dimensions to be taken into account in these specific work situations. This conceptual tool allows a mapping of the media competences of workers and members of their team(s) and constitutes an apparatus promoting the emergence of collective reflexivity, essential in the deployment of quality collaborative remote work., Les technologies numériques ont pris une place centrale dans le quotidien des employés de bureau et sont devenues le principal support de leurs activités collaboratives. Parallèlement, le travail à distance s’est progressivement banalisé au sein des équipes et se déploie aujourd’hui sous de multiples formes : télétravail, travail mobile, collaboration inter-sites, espaces de travail sans bureaux attribués, etc. Ces évolutions du monde du travail font apparaître des problématiques nouvelles dans le domaine des sciences de l’information et de la communication. Elles constituent notamment un enjeu important pour l’étude de la littératie médiatique des travailleurs et invitent à s‘intéresser aux compétences qu’ils doivent mobiliser pour s’adapter, accomplir leurs missions et s’épanouir au sein de ces environnements professionnels particuliers. Dans ce cadre, l’aboutissement de ma thèse de doctorat a été de proposer une définition des compétences médiatiques de collaboration basée sur l’observation des pratiques de travailleurs confrontés à des activités collaboratives soutenues par les TIC. Les résultats des analyses ont donné lieu à l’élaboration d’une matrice croisant les activités collaboratives entrant en jeu dans le travail à distance soutenu par les technologies avec différentes dimensions à prendre en compte dans ces situations de travail spécifiques. Cet outil conceptuel permet une cartographie des compétences médiatiques des travailleurs et des membres de leur(s) équipe(s) et constitue un dispositif favorisant l’émergence d’une réflexivité collective, indispensable dans le déploiement d’un travail collaboratif à distance de qualité., (COMU - Information et communication) -- UCL, 2019

This chapter is structured as follows. First, we lay out the theoretical framework for our work. We introduce the concept of digital media literacy (DML) and discuss how it positions our object of study beyond a technologically-centered approach, encompasses both basic operational skills and full-fledged competences, and allows us to articulate both functional and critical aspects of these competences. We then specify the relationship between DML and the social practices that actualize them. Finally, we define categories of collaborative work that are essential to our observation of distance collaboration practices. Second, we detail the methods of data collection and analysis we used to infer a map of DML competence from the interview and observational data of sixty workers engaged in distance collaboration in ten public and private Belgian organizations. Third, we present an overview of the results of our analyses, followed by a detailed description of the domains of competence we identified in terms of activities collaborators perform, and dimensions these activities include. Fourth, we offer an alternative, complementary look at our data in the form of aggregated quantitative indicators. Finally, our conclusions are presented based on the discussion of the results.

Digital technology has become ubiquitous in the workplace, especially for office workers. So-called "new ways of working" are enabled by technological, organizational and societal developments. As distance collaboration is becoming increasingly common, it raises a number of critical questions. How does the organizational design evolve to accommodate and support this transformation? What are the key changes in the individual and team work practices? What competences do workers need in these new work environments? And how do the associated discursive changes impact on the practices and subjectivities of office workers? LITME@WORK, a 4-year research project, addressed these changes through the lens of digital media literacy (DML) for office work, focusing on teamwork and distance work. This project has investigated DML from three different but complementary perspectives: (1) a practice-oriented perspective focusing on the relationship between digital media uses and competences in employees’ new work practices; (2) an organizational design perspective focusing on the relationship between work organization, workplace design and structural conditions for (DML) competence utilization and learning; and (3) a discourse-analytical perspective focusing on the sense-making processes office workers rely on when they conceptualize work and (DML) competences in organizations transitioning to new ways of working. The LITME@WORK project studied ten Belgian organizations that took measures to enhance ICT-supported distance teamwork. The selected cases represent a variety of work contexts that can be distinguished on the basis of parameters such as the public/private distinction, the sector of activity (e.g. IT, health, transportation, insurance) and the size of the organization. LITME@WORK delivers as main research results: a research framework for analyzing the many aspects of digital media literacy in distance teamwork practices and environments, ranging from the organizational and

This chapter introduces the book that present the results of the LITME@WORK project. LITME@WORK asked the following research questions: (1) how is digital media literacy (DML) addressed and practiced in today’s office work and (2) how can DML be further integrated in emerging distance teamwork structures and practices in order to support effective, stimulating and meaningful ways of working. Starting from these questions, LITME@WORK has pursued four objectives: (i) to understand changing work environments and their DML requirements, (ii) to develop a systemic approach to DML in office distance teamwork, (iii) to provide resources for societal and policy stakeholders, and (iv) to contribute to research efforts in relevant fields of research., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

info:eu-repo/semantics/published

How to infer the digital media literacy competences of office workers related to distant teamwork from the observation of collaborative practices? This paper pre-sents a qualitative method that combines deductive and inductive approaches to analyze interviews and observations carried out in ten organizations. From a de-ductive standpoint, our analysis is anchored in a review of the literature in Com-puter-Supported Cooperative Work. From an inductive standpoint, our analyses use principles from phenomenography and grounded theory to abstract a theoreti-cal understanding of the studied experiences. The combination of these approach-es allows us to examine the way workers experience distant teamwork activities and to consider how their competences reside in their ability to frame the work situations they encounter, and to develop responses accordingly.

Aujourd’hui les expositions sont des phénomènes culturels qui font l’objet de différentes recherches. Nous avons envisagé une approche sémio pragmatique pour étudier les traces que le concepteur laisse inévitablement au sein des dispositifs qu’il conçoit. Ces traces sont des indices qui influencent le parcours du visiteur et son interprétation. Nous étions curieuse de déterminer quels sont les éléments qui composent ces indices et qui amènent à la construction du sens par le visiteur. Notre recherche s’ancre donc dans le champ disciplinaire de la sémio pragmatique (Esquenazi 1997 - Meunier & Peraya 2004 - Odin, 2011 - Bouillaguet, 2012). Cette approche communicationnelle nous permet de réaliser des analyses qui prennent en compte l’influence du contexte communicationnel du concepteur et les effets qui s’inscrivent dans la production du sens par le visiteur. Nous proposons donc de réaliser des analyses de dispositifs existants en nous penchant sur leurs traces d’énonciation et ce que ces dernières impliquent comme réflexion et construction du sens pour le visiteur. En d’autres mots, nous n’étudierons pas les effets réels obtenus par les dispositifs via la mise en place d’analyses de réception. Nous chercherons plutôt à préciser quelles sont les potentialités de ces dispositifs, c’est-à-dire ce que nous appellerons leurs « effets potentiels ». Cette posture a des retombées certaines : elle attire l’attention sur la nécessité pour le concepteur de savoir ce qu’il désire induire comme effets et donc de réfléchir à la manière de construire les dispositifs., (COMU - Information et communication) -- UCL, 2017

The ubiquity of information and communication technologies in the workplace has fostered a surge in distant teamwork practices. The LITME@WORK project aims at defining the digital media literacy competences of office workers related to distant teamwork. Our approach is focused on the definition of competences from the point of view of workers involved in collaborative projects supported by information and communication technology (ICT). The question we propose to examine in this communication is how to infer competences from the observation of collaborative practices. We collected qualitative data in ten Belgian public and private organisations that have introduced changes in their work environment with the intention of enhancing teamwork and/or distance work with ICT. In each organisation, we conducted six guided-tour interviews with leaders and members of two different teams. We also spent half a day in each organisation observing actual work practices. Our method combines deductive and inductive approaches. From a deductive standpoint, we reviewed the literature on collaborative ICT-mediated work in the field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. This allowed us to build an interview guide based on eleven types of practices, such as authoring a document collectively, or managing one’s tasks in relations with others (Collard et al., 2016). From an inductive standpoint, our analyses use principles from grounded theory and phenomenography to build a theoretical understanding of the studied experiences (Charmaz, 2006). We examine the way workers experience (Marton, 1986) the computer-supported cooperative practices they are engaged in by confronting, for each practice, the informant’s activity (what they do) with their tasks (what they are supposed to do), their goals (what they want to do), and the activity of the members of their teams (what others do). We identify their “successful practices” (when all four dimensions match) and their difficulties (when mismatch

La présente communication vise à proposer une réflexion sur les compétences numériques et médiatiques des travailleurs impliqués dans des environnements de travail collaboratif et à distance, au regard des enjeux soulevés par les évolutions que connaissent les organisations. Quelles sont les valeurs soutenues par les projets menés actuellement dans les organisations concernant les nouveaux modes de travail collaboratif et à distance ? Quels enjeux soulèvent-elles au niveau de la littératie numérique et médiatique des travailleurs ? Pour répondre à ces questions, notre réflexion s’appuie sur les données recueillies lors de la phase exploratoire du projet de recherche LITME@WORK, “Littératie numérique et médiatique dans les environnements de travail collaboratif et à distance”.

Traditionally seen as a sub-concept of librarianship, information literacy has evolved far beyond issues of information access, management, or transmission (Moeller et al., 2011). The changing settings of mediated environments transform what it means to be information-savvy in the digital age. Hence, information literacy is becoming an issue to be tackled in the analysis of complex social and technical arrangements such as new work environments, where technologically-mediated teamwork and distance work have spread widely (Bruce, 1999). In particular, while the ability to consult, produce, search, or organize information are often implicitly considered as skills of the individual, it is also necessary to take the collective dimension of information literacy at work into account (Crawford & Irving, 2009). Our presentation is based on work-in-progress research on digital and media literacy in distant teamwork environments. We introduce a theoretical framework that articulates the social and informational dimensions of competences in workplace environments. Using this framework, we interview office workers about how digital technology supports their distant teamwork practices and analyze these practices in terms of the technical, informational, and social competences they involve. In this presentation, we use preliminary field data to highlight how our informants’ informational work practices are not valuable in themselves, but only in relation to the social organization they elaborate. We see information literacy as inseparable from the ongoing social condition of the practice. For example, the observed employees’ activities include the management of collective tasks, and of synchronous and asynchronous collective time. They involve the collective creation, maintenance, and sharing of information. Some activities are dedicated to the monitoring and visibility of the coordinated activity, or to the gathering of information for decision-making. Those examples illustrate

L’économie collaborative d’aujourd’hui repose sur une logique contributive où l’homo oeconomicus n’est plus un simple consommateur mais devient aussi producteur, commentateur ou facilitateur. Cette contribution est sollicitée par des dispositifs sociotechniques reposant sur des mécaniques ludiques et véhiculant des valeurs de partage, de rencontre et de bonheur collectif. La confiance, nécessaire à toute forme d’économie, se construit ici à travers la participation et les liens sociaux qui se créent. Partant de l’étude de plusieurs cas, l’analyse sémiotique des discours de ces plateformes permet de comprendre comment s’articulent ces mécanismes de gamification, de participation et de confiance.

Le partage d’informations personnelles via les réseaux sociaux numériques constitue pour les usagers un lieu d’expression privilégié. Les compétences médiatiques jouent un rôle dans leur appropriation des affordances socio-techniques de ces dispositifs. L’objectif de cet article est de proposer une analyse du rôle des représentations sociales dans le développement des usages et leur influence sur la mobilisation des compétences médiatiques. L’analyse d’une série d’interviews réalisées avec des étudiants illustre les tensions créées par les différentes représentations sociales qu’ils possèdent, et les bricolages mis en place pour tenter de faire face à ces tensions.