Design of Meanings: A Multiple-Case Study of Meaning Making With Videos as Multimodal Web-Based Texts

• In Event: 35.082 - Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: 35.082-18 - Writing Without Words: Digital Literacies, Visual Representation, and Identity

Abstract

This project seeks to understand how readers construct meanings from videos, which incorporate visual, linguistic and audio resources in their making. Six competent and experienced readers who varied across a range of parameters (background, interest, first language) were invited to watch and respond to four web-based videos, which differ in their genre, purpose, production, and style. Through systematic qualitative analysis of think-aloud protocol and interview data, initial findings indicate that readers not only respond to the message and rhetorics of a text but also situate themselves and their understanding in relation to the medium’s affordances and cultural context. The study advances the discussion on what it means to read and being a reader in an intensely complex, multimodal world.

Authors

• Ha Thanh Nguyen, Michigan State University

• Thanh Ha Phung, Michigan State University