Intercultural Communicative Competence in the Digital Age: Critical Digital Literacy and Inquiry-Based Pedagogy

Discourses surrounding digital technologies have often foregrounded their capacity to connect people however, in reality, online communication can also result in fragmentation, polarization and modes of exclusion. To address these issues, this paper highlights the need for learners to develop a critical digital literacy (CDL) that contributes to a greater understanding of how power and ideologies operate online. By proposing a two-pronged teaching strategy that integrates inquiry-based learning and digital activism, this paper seeks to demonstrate how the field of language and intercultural communication can help imagine a more equitable and inclusive online world through focused teaching strategies.