Title: Mobile literacies & South African teens: Leisure reading, writing, and MXit chatting for teens in Langa and Guguletu
Author: Marion Walton
Pages: 108 pp.
Source: m4Lit Project
Publisher: Shuttleworth Foundation

Date (published): 24/03/2010
Date (accessed): 07/04/2010
Type of information: research report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
The Shuttleworth Foundation‟s m4Lit project commissioned an m-novel, entitled Kontax, which was written by Sam Wilson and translated into isiXhosa by Nkululeko Mabandla. Written in the teen mystery genre, Kontax was targeted at teens aged between fourteen and seventeen years and was intitially published in daily episodes in both English and isiXhosa on the mobisite www.kontax.mobi (a website designed specifically for use on mobile phones). It was later also released on local mobile social network and instant messaging platform, MXit.
The m4Lit research project investigated how South African teens responded to Kontax, and how compatible the m-novel was with teens‟ existing mobile literacy practices. The m4lLit research project focused on exploring an apparent paradox of literacy in South Africa. In most of the country‟s under-performing schools, a majority of teens are left behind academically, many experience difficulties with literacy instruction and most have limited access to books and computers. Yet, as a result of South Africa‟s mobile phone „revolution‟ and a thriving mobile youth culture, outside school teens increasingly enjoy frequent rich interactions with the written word and with digital technologies in their peer networks. The m4Lit project asked whether South African teens‟ enthusiasm about text on phones and their widespread access to mobile Internet could be used in a literacy development project which attempted to bridge the gap between in-school and out-of- school literacies, via leisure reading and writing of fiction.