Kontax – The Shuttleworth Foundation’s m4Lit project launches in South Africa 30 September 2009

On 30 September 2009 Kontax – an m-novel created for the Shuttleworth Foundation’s m4Lit project– launches in South Africa, making world history as the first of its kind to be offered in both English and isiXhosa. The m4Lit project, led by Steve Vosloo, 21st Century Learning Fellow for the Shuttleworth Foundation, aims to not only explore the potential for increased reading and writing for 21st century teens through mobile phones, but also to introduce a more interactive style of story writing and publishing that holds appeal to the participatory culture of youth. The hope behind the m4Lit project is that by researching the role of cellphones in teen reading and writing, educationalists and publishers can better understand the opportunities and risk for literacy practices presented by the most popular communication device used by any teen today.

About m4Lit (mobile phones for literacy)
The m4Lit pilot project aims to explore whether teens are interested in reading stories on their cellphones, whether and how they write using their cellphones, and whether cellphones might be used to develop literacy skills and a love of reading. Enter Kontax, an m-novel written on commission from the Shuttleworth Foundation by prize winning ‘mobilist’ Sam Wilson. Kontax is an m-novel made for mobile – and from 30 September readers will be able to access the dynamic teen narrative from their WAP-enabled cellphones, or from their computers. Every day another exciting chapter in the mystery plot will be told, with 21 chapters rolling out over 21 days. Teen readers will be invited to interact with Kontax as it unfolds on their cellphones: they can vote on and discuss the progressing plot, leave comments, download wallpapers and finally submit a written piece as part of a competition, with airtime prizes available for winning submissions.

The story – about the adventures of a group of teenage graffiti writers – is published in both English and isiXhosa to increase accessibility to a broad range of South African teenagers, aged 14-16 years. As part of the research component of this project, interviews with teens in Cape Town before and after the publishing of  Kontax will establish to what extent this project changes South African learners' attitudes to reading and writing, what learners think about m-novels, and whether the mobile medium as a literacy tool interests or excites them.

Global perspective
In inviting interaction from and discussion amongst its teenage readers, Kontax is aligned with leading global trends, and follows the success of audience participation in story writing found in Japan, where teens have been reading and writing novels on their cellphones in this way for a number of years. The popularity of the m-novel is clearly evident in Japan, where six out of the top 10 fiction best sellers in 2008 were m-novels that had later been printed in book form. The evolution of digital media has had a profound impact on the literacy practices of teenagers from east to west – in the USA, research has shown that through their computers today's teens are reading and writing more than ever, not formally but on blogs, MySpace pages and via instant messages. Increasingly, SMSes and chats on their cellphones also form part of the “reading” and “writing” of digital literacy.

In 2006 Steve Vosloo spent a year at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley, tapping into all these developments in his research on how youth can use digital media to tell stories. He had been using ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) for development and education for some time in SA, but the focus now shifted specifically to youth, at a time when user-generated content and Web 2.0 were really taking hold. Two things became apparent: young people do not only want to consume content, they also want to create, share and remix it – characteristics of a so-called participatory culture. Secondly, digital media and ICTs, whether blogs, videos or mobile phones, are the much loved tools that empower this youth creativity.

Placing South Africa in the global digital collage
Teens in South Africa (SA) are not as broadband and web-enabled as their American counterparts, but they do have a lead in terms of access to and usage of mobile phones. In SA, mobile texting and mobile instant messaging is prolific. MXit, the popular instant messaging service, claims that 250 million messages (as part of chat conversations) are exchanged every day amongst its 14 million subscribers, a substantial number of whom are in the 18 and under age group.

Having returned from the USA to take up a  fellowship at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Vosloo saw first hand that Africa is the world's fastest growing market for mobile phones. The continent is truly experiencing a communication revolution through cellphones (despite excessively high tariffs), especially in SA. The ways in which youth are using their cellphones to communicate, socialise, play, learn and even earn money, are far more innovative than in most developed countries. With computer-based broadband penetration at around 10%, and cellphone penetration up to 90% amongst the youth, for many in SA the cellphone, not the PC, is the tool for user-generated content. For many a cellphone also means access to the Internet. In this context, a worthwhile research project seemed to involve exploring the mobile medium as a way to get young people to read, interact with, and write stories. Kontax is the result of years of interrelated research, many months of planning as well as exciting creative and technological collaboration. Kontax officially launches at the the Book Lounge in Cape Town on Wednesday 30 September at 18h00. All are welcome, but should please RSVP to either booklounge@gmail.com or 021 462 2425.

Pros and Cons of the m-novel
Pros: Providing accessible, interactive reading material. The low level of literacy amongst South African youth is a recognised problem. Two factors that contribute to this is that learners do not read and write enough, and that books are unaffordable, and therefore unavailable, to many learners. Given that cellphones are increasingly pervasive devices, it is worth exploring their potential for publishing and authoring. Cellphones may represent a way to alleviate the chronic shortage of books in SA as they provide a viable content distribution solution.

Cons: One potentially negative impact of mobiles for literacy is around text speak – or "txtspk". Most written communication on cellphones doesn’t follow the traditional norms of the written language, but is rather based on emergent practices of abbreviations, shortenings and letter-number combinations, e.g. gr8 for great. The jury is out on whether txtspk is responsible for the degradation of spelling and grammar amongst today's youth, or whether it encourages writing that is economical, inventive and playful – and even improves phonetic awareness – thus making it a positive practice.

Contextual affiliations
The Shuttleworth Foundation supports innovative applications of digital media that improve teaching and learning in the 21st century, through practical projects. The m4Lit project explores the role of ICTs that are already in the hands of many youth to encourage reading and writing as they are practised in the 21st century.

The team at the Shuttleworth Foundation has been advised by two researchers from the University of Cape Town. Associate Professor Ana Deumert specialises in multilingualism and  indigenous literacies, while Dr Marion Walton specialises in media, digital literacies and mobile literacies. Dr Walton has researched how youth in Cape Town use their cellphones and, in particular, MXit, for socialising and learning.

Fontera has developed the mobisite, while the m-novel and visual design for the Kontax story has been created by Clockwork Zoo. Sam Wilson, a writer there won the Novel Idea story competition last year, when he wrote a 30-chapter, 900-characters-per-chapter m-novel. Nkululeko Mabandla translated the story into isiXhosa.

The m4Lit project started in August 2009 and will run until  November 2009, with project findings being released in December.

Practical info
After 30 September a new chapter from Kontax will be released every day. Each chapter is about 400 words long
To read the story, vote, comment and enter the competitions, teens can register on www.kontax.mobi from 30 September.
Or SMS "Kontax" to 33039 now. (Readers will be sent a reminder SMS back when the story launches.)
Readers will get the story – and clear directions on how to participate and enter the competitions from the Kontax mobisite.
SMS is charged at R1.50. This service is only available to WAP-enabled cellphones.

Follow Kontax:
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/kontaxmobi or using #kontax.
On Facebook: join the group Kontax (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=159939092618)

PRESS IMAGES
For a range of high-res press images and related captions please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/41661758@N08/

CREDITING OF IMAGES
All images and Kontax story content will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 South Africa licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/)
Credit should read: “Shuttleworth Foundation, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 South Africa”