Digitally Mediated Transnational Popular Culture Texts as Multicultural Curriculum

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Readings of Curriculum as Identity Representation and Development Through Digital Multimedia

Abstract

What are the possibilities and challenges of youth engagements with transnational new media texts for public education? This paper is part of a larger study that explored the literacy and language practices of geographically disparate youth on a free online discussion forum devoted to Korean dramas. Qualitative data included forum participants’ writing, visual images, and interactions. Key findings revealed that the forum’s multimodal literacy affordances supported user-generated informal multicultural curriculum within this online space: multimodal texts that constructed knowledge of Korean history and culture. Applying sociocultural theories of learning, this case highlights the potential of online, transnational popular culture texts and interest-driven spaces for twenty-first century multicultural education in a global context.

Author

• Grace MyHyun Kim, The University of Texas - Austin