The study of literacy is so much more than the understanding of the written word. It includes discourse communities (communities in which people learn the meaning behind the symbols of words), meaning making, and the "dialog" between the "sender" and the "receiver". It also includes a level of critical thinking depending on the level of literacy. At the highest level of literacy, the receiver of the message can take symbols and abstract them into higher order thinking, often moving from the literal to the abstract in the form of hypothesis, application to one's environment even though on the surface it seems unrelated, and connecting to other ideas.

It seems to me, looking at literacy in this way, looking at a YouTube video can indicate different levels of literacy, just like looking at texts.

My 20 years of experience teaching at the university and adult training levels has demonstrated that there is a shift. That shift is not in written or oral traditions or even media literacies vs. written literacy. Rather, it is the ability for my students to abstract meaning and think critically (at a higher level) based on symbols. I see a trend towards much more literal thinking with an inability to abstract from the media, text, or oral inputs. Many of these students score high on SAT or ACT standardized tests which would indicate that they are "literate" in the traditional sense of being able to read and write. However, in my mind, they are becoming more "illiterate" as they are having more and more difficulty abstracting from the literal.