Centre for Multimodal Research Summer-term Seminar 

Multimodal Methodologies and Video Data: Two Approaches

20^th June 2012
17:30-19:00
London Knowledge Lab, Emerald St, London, WC1N 3QS

1. Curating the Self in Digital Video Production: Multimodal Methods and Socio-cultural Theory in a Doctoral Study, Dr John Potter, London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education

This short presentation will explore how an adapted form of multimodal analysis was used as a key element of methodology in a doctoral study of children’s autobiographical video production. I will show examples of the data from the project and outline the method of transcription I used to analyse them. I will share how these methods allowed me to connect the videos and their associated drawn artefacts with a range of socio cultural theory and ultimately propose “self curatorship” as a cultural and literacy practice in new media. There will also be the opportunity to screen further examples and to discuss the interdisciplinary nature of the project.

2.      A Multimodal Analysis of Youths’ Creative Practices within a Theater Project, Dr Lalitha Vasudevan, Columbia University, New York

At the heart of this presentation is the question of how we see the creative and literate lives of adolescents and how we make meaning of their cultural practices as they move into and out of communities that nurture their creative endeavors. Implied in the question of how we see are the related questions of what we notice, how we document, and how we interpret what is observed. In this way, multimodality has been a helpful framework for attending to ongoing practices as well as passing moments of communication and representation that occurred within a youth theater program in New York City. Of particular interest were the ways in which youth participants expressed affiliation, for example through laughter and singing, spontaneous poetry and sharing of texts between and amongst one another and with program staff. To complement the interpretive methodological affordances of multimodality, I draw in the theoretical perspectives of spatiality and cosmopolitanism to further explore youths’ creative practices within this project. Examples of video, audio, and photographic data from a multi-year ethnography in which this theater project was situated will be shared as part of the presentation.

Registration

This event is free to attend but places are limited – please book a place at the online registration page

For further information please contact Anna Waring: a.waring@ioe.ac.uk