This paper attempts to present a theoretical framework for researching the out-of-school digital literacy practices of Greek adolescents. The broader aim, however, is to discuss the theoretical and methodological issues concerning research designs to investigate literacy practices in the globalisation era. Based on data representing local and global developments in a material region (Greece), it is suggested that it is necessary to make use of historical and geographical dimensions as well as recent global developments. To capture the full complexity of the situation, a combination of key understandings from the New Literacy Studies tradition, recent social linguistic research and Critical Semiotic Analysis, used from a self-consciously political perspective, is suggested.