Offering Transactional Theory as Theoretical Basis for Visual Narrative Inquiry

• In Event: 63.067 - Narrative Research From Multimodal Perspectives

Abstract

Scholarship shows the powerful role of visual narratives in the field of qualitative research, but the use of visual data is still regarded as a slow growing practice in the field of narrative inquiry. This is based on common pervasive beliefs by many conventional researchers that visual narrative inquiry is ‘soft’ research. Visual narrative inquiry researchers therefore need to exert more effort in showing theoretical support and rigor for this genre if it were to gain stronger acceptance and wider use in the field. The purpose then of this paper is to offer such theoretical support for Visual Narrative Inquiry through Louise Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory of Reading (1965), while drawing on example visual narratives to illustrate the theory’s major points.

Author

• Elizabeth Isidro, Western Michigan University