The focus of this doctoral research project, being undertaken by Berit Henriksen is the exploration and development of multimodal approaches to researching social media. The thesis will explore a number of interconnected issues – i.e. what aspects of social media activity and practice merit empirical investigation? What research questions, forms of data collection, data analysis and presentation are raised by a multimodal approach to social media as a research topic? In short, what are the methodological implications of multimodality to the growing tradition of social science investigation of social media tools and applications?

Based around the planning and execution of three diverse pilot investigations of different aspects of social media activity and practice, the thesis will strive to develop a multimodal methodological knowledge base that can inform and enhance future social research in this growing area of digital society. Berit is being supervised by Professor Carey Jewitt