The Relevance of Communicative Competence in the Context of Information Literacy Programs

Communication competence can be integrated in information literacy programs from two different perspectives. On one hand, from the perspective of the knowledge creation and sharing cycle, communication competence is the final stage of any research project. This perspective is very important, but it is quite limited to scholarly, academic, and research and development (R+D) environments. On the other hand, communication is a pervasive phenomenon of human life, e.g., the way in which humans interrelate and form communities and societies. This perspective is more comprehensive and offers very interesting new ways, but it becomes fuzzier from a disciplinary point of view. Because of its transdisciplinary nature, communicative competence promotion is frequently scattered in many different subjects and activities through syllabi and nonacademic programs, and it is rarely treated in an integral manner. In particular, information literacy programs usually deal with the topics related to communicative competence that are inside or very near to library and information science, e.g., enhancing the production, dissemination, and impact of academic documents and scientific publications. Those subjects are discussed in this chapter with an emphasis in the new social networking technologies and the nascent semantic web. However, the need to show, map, and integrate the different perspectives of communicative competence is a challenge that deserves proper consideration. Communicative competence is a basic one, and users should have an opportunity to achieve a holistic perspective of its basic components, its relations, and the techniques and tools available for its improvement.