SOCIAL NETWORK DIGITAL LITERACY: TO THE RATIONALE OF THE CONCEPT

Abstract

The article presents the results of conceptualization and research of one of the partial types of general digital literacy - social-network digital literacy, incorporated into the corpus of digital competencies of youth. A structural model of the social-network digital literacy is proposed. The task of the field stage of the research, in addition to testing the model, was to describe the specific content of the competencies and subcompetencies included in the model with identifying the degree of their priority for the respondents. In this study, among the entire body of sociological methods, preference was given to qualitative research. The study used such qualitative methods as in-depth interviews, focus groups, analysis of creative essays on the topic of digital communications. Representatives of the studentship of Tomsk universities were selected as respondents. Recruiting was based on the availability of participants, a high level of reflexivity and high network competencies. A standardized sociological survey (N = 201 respondents; in the format of an on-line survey) of student audiences of universities in Tomsk in order to identify the competencies of social network digital literacy supplemented the qualitative research. The study showed the formation among generation Z of a corpus of representations with normative coerciveness and presupposing mastery of a whole set of specific digital competencies. Such a complex of knowledge, skills and normative ethical attitudes serves as a tool for effective communication and socialization of young people in the virtual space of networks. The importance and priority for the respondents of information and media, self-presentation, affiliate, linguistic competences and security competence, incorporated by the authors into the structure of the social-network literacy model, are shown.