This article is guided by the question of what digital competencies are needed to deal with disinformation strategies in social media and how these competencies can be embedded in the discourse on (media) pedagogy. It considers this question from the perspective of the digital condition and addresses the current competency debate by proposing a synergetic linkage of critical media competencies and data competencies. On this basis, it explores the relationship between learning opportunities, digital infrastructures, and the resilience of our democracies. The article concludes by discussing our “Synergistic Literacy Model Against Disinformation” in terms of its advantages and relevance for future literacy concepts, solutions to broader societal problems, and the resilience of democracies.

L Elkins (1998), recently appointed editors of the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, noted in their first issue of the journal that the potential for such reinvention is reflected in the way “texts and literate practices of everyday life are changing at an unprecedented and disorienting pace” (p. 4). Attributing the changes largely to new information technologies arid to the complex multiliteracies that these technologies entail (New London Group, 1997), Luke and Elkins characterizled the era in which we are living as New Times. It is a time of major shifts in cultural practices, economic systems, and social institutions on a global scale; a time when literacy educators from around the world are speculating about the ways in which new technologies will alter conceptions of reading and writing.

In this paper, through an exploration into our experiences as educators concerned with marginalized populations of learners in secondary and post secondary settings, we argue for a pedagogy that brings together the realities of 21st century literacy practices with critical media literacy. We present a framework for teaching critical media literacy that addresses the complex facets of equity in 21st century literacy practices.