New Literacies Glossary

Discourses (p.3) - Discourses are socially recognized ways of using language (reading, writing, speaking, listening), gestures and other semiotics (images, sounds, graphics, signs, codes), as well as ways of thinking, believing, feeling, valuing, acting/doing and interacting in relation to people and things, such that we can be identified and recognized as being a member of a socially meaningful group, or as playing a socially meaningful role (cf., Gee 1991, 1996, 1998).


Primary Discourses (p. 3)- How we learn to be and act within our face to face interactions throughout our lives.

Secondary Discourses (p.3)- Discourses recruited through outsides groups (friends, school, clubs, etc.).


Encoded texts (p. 5)- Texts that have been rendered in a form that allows them to be retrieved, worked with, and made available independently of the physical presence of another person.

Web 2.0 (p. 16)

Role-Playing (p. 67)- an episodic and participatory story-creation system that includes a set of quantified rules that assist a group of players and a gamemaster in determining how their fictional characters’ spontaneous interactions are resolved (2001, 5; original emphases).

Secondary Authors (p. 68)- Authors who construct specific fictional situations within a pre-established imaginary world. The secondary author takes the work of the primary author and uses it to create a certain situation.

Primary Authorship (p. 71)- The primary author develops a world and a set of rules. 

Agency (p. 72)- Agency describes the capabilities one has in terms of taking action within a space of possibility (Anstey 2005).

Authority (p. 72)- Authority refers to the ability to enforce and judge the results of those actions.

Textual Agency (p.73)- how much control one has over the actual text in question, such as the text of the book or the shot sequence of the movie.

Narrative Agency (p. 73)- refers to how much control one has over the story.this includes both an author’s capacity to have their characters act in certain ways within a narrative text, and a reader’s capacity to interpret and understand those actions (Anstey 2005)

Psychological Agency (p. 73)- Psychological agency describes how much control individuals feel that they have (Mateas 2003).


Narrative authority (p. 73)- refers to who makes decisions about the way the text or story actually turns out.  




Psychological authority (p. 73) has to do with the way that the text establishes its fictional authority over the reader, and the degree to which the reader buys in to the story (Bal 1998).  



Cultural Authority (p. 73) - How much value we assign to the text, and to the notion of the author as the final arbiter of meaning within it (Foucault 1977).


Physical Authority (p.73)- The authority that a traditional text has simply by being a text, as it is hand- ed down over time and becomes an authoritative resource. 


Fanfiction (p.116)- denotes texts written by fans about their favorite media and pop cultural icons. Such texts often extend the plotline of the original series (e.g., characters from Star Trek discover a new planet), explore relationships between characters (e.g., Shaggy and Velma from Scooby Doo fall in love), and/or expand the timeline of the media by developing prequels and/or sequels of sorts (e.g., a journal detailing the many regrets of Darth Vader before his death); however, these are just a few examples of the many creative contributions such fan texts make to the pop cultural imaginary.








Affinity Spaces (p.13)- to be and feel connected to other people and to celebrate a fandom: to participate in an affinity, to make shared meanings, to brighten the day, share a laugh, share one’s passion for a product or a character, and so on in an online space.


Memes (p.199)- Memes are contagious patterns of “cultural information” that get passed from mind to mind and directly generate and shape the mindsets and significant forms of behavior and actions of a social group. Memes include such things as popular tunes, catch- phrases, clothing fashions, architectural styles, ways of doing things, icons, jingles, and the like.

 All definitions came straight from:


 Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds) (2007). A New Literacies Sampler. New York: Peter Lang.