Communicative competence in the information age: Towards a critical theory of information literacy education

Abstract

Insights developed from critical social science, particularly the work of Jürgen Habermas, areused to analyse the development of information literacy as a subject and its contemporarydefinitions. The challenges facing information literacy educators are located in potentialcontradictions between the subject’s strategic, technical elements and its more critical,communicative and social aspects. The critical potential of information literacy can alsosuggest why it is politically sensitive, and may struggle to attract status and funding.