This paper describes, in a contextualized way, the relation between digital literacies and critical literacies based on the concepts of cultural transcodification and dialogism, by means of examples of interactions between the researcher and an automated conversational agent available on the WWW. It shows that this type of interaction can be considered dialogic in the sense of highlighting the ‘peopling’ of digital texts by two types of voices or discursive intentions: one related to rationality and the other to rationalization. The conclusion is that this hybridism of voices may be correctly used for a critical education in order to dismantle binary oppositions between technology and culture.
digital literacies; cultural transcodification; automated conversational agents
