Information literacy in the digital age: Multimodal information literacy model

Information literacy is considered as a central life skill for an educated person. Therefore, it has been studied for more than fifty years by numerous researchers across many disciplines. The definitions and requirements for being information literate has been changed and evolved through this research timeline. Many scholars posit that this definition and set of literacy specifications is mainly determined by the information practices and technological developments in the age. Therefore, as the processes, the ways, and the tools by which people access, use, and share information paves nature and standards of being information literate persons. The age we live is called as digital age where information is located, accessed, used, re-constructed and shared mostly on web connected and electronic tools through social processed where the persons are not only users of information but also active contributors of information construction. Furthermore, since the affordances provided by user friendly screens and the effects of globalization in communication, the semiotic structure of information resources has been evolved from dominant monomodal (linguistic) to multimodal semiotic structure. Therefore, being linguistic literate is inadequate and persons are expected to be multimodal literate who can make meaning and design multimodal information resources. This study is focused on the nature and competencies of being information literate in digital age and aims to define a theoretical and an operational definition of being information literature. Regarding previous research, this study firstly integrates ACRL (2016) framework and multimodal literacy term to define nature and competencies of information literacy in digital age and used the term of multimodal information literacy. Second, the current study aims to explore the effective learning activities to develop multimodal information literacy competencies. To address these aims, qualitative research method including case study and action research is employed. Sixteen graduate-level Information and Records Management students participated to the study. Learning activities are applied through an educational term via synchronous and asynchronous virtual platforms. The data resources were information literacy tests applied longitudinally three times across the research, individual multimodal information literacy interviews, and participants' design of information resources. Results demonstrated that participants' multimodal information literacy skills were low before the learning activities. After the application of the learning activities, which has its own pedagogical characteristics, learner agency, and learner engagement, there observed improvements in the multimodal information literacy competencies in the results. The study demonstrates that the definition and competencies of being information literate must be re-defined and updated according to information ethos and practices of the age and multimodal information literacy is an appropriate and effective candidate. Second, the educational activities must be based on effective pedagogical strategies through which learners builds their own knowledge on previous ones and through which learners are enabled to transform their knowledge into daily life and academic information literacy practices. Third, as a main constraint of the study, the blended (inperson and digital) learning activities seems the best instructional strategy for effective multimodal information literacy.