researchers in the social and human sciences have to acknowledge that they are meaning-making humans, just like the persons they are studying, and identify their role in the research process as co-constructers in partnership with the respondents of an interpretation of their reality (Darlaston-Jones, 2007, p. 25; also see Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016, p. 16). The researchers’ own worldviews and frames of references influence the whole research process, from its initial motives and purposes to the selection of data, theoretical frameworks, and methods of analysis. Importantly, in this study I do not make the claim that the analysis of the students’ meaning-making and use of semiotic resources makes it possible to say what it means exactly, but it is possible to describe the meanings they will allow me as a researcher to make. This is not only an epistemological grounding but also a theoretical one; in social semiotic theory of multimodality, all modes are considered to have been shaped through their cultural, historical, and social use; they are not fixed but articulated and situated. Consequently, what it is possible to say something about is not what the semiotic resources actually mean, but the meaning they, in this particular case, allow the image producers and viewers to create; the focus is on their meaning potential.
Even though digital video is considered a highly visual medium, it is more than image. Digital video is also music, sound effects, and spoken voice; it is multimodal. Consequently, multimodality serves not only as a theoretical framework but also as an important methodological approach for this study, on account of the significance and potential it accords all modes of representation and communication in meaning-making, not regarding any as trivial, secondary, or decorative (see Burn, 2009, p. 81).
Visual methodology is a broad and rapidly evolving area of research with a philosophical grounding in several fields.23 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the conception of the camera as a tool of objective documentations emerged along with the development of photographic technology (Stanczak, 2007). This conception of the camera and the use of visual media in research soon became contested by a more subjective and interpretive approach, acknowledging the epistemological concerns related to visual data.
Over the past three decades, qualitative researchers have given serious thought to using images to develop understanding of human meaning-making and condition, including forms of films, photographs, drawings, cartoons, graffiti, maps, and symbols. These media are providing researchers with not only a different sort of data but also, more importantly, an alternative way to perceive meaning-making and communication (Prosser, 1998).
Regarding the considerations discussed above, both epistemological and theoretical stances influenced the research design and methods of the study. With reference to the students’ transmediating process, this means that the process is different in different contexts and in interaction with the surrounding world and other people, as well as in interaction with resources available. From this perspective, representation, interpretation, and meaning-making are socially
23 This section will not review the philosophical grounding for visual methodology, but it can be noted that it echoes well with interpretive research.
For introductions, current trends, and overviews of the field of visual methodology, see e.g. Rose (2012), Stancsak (2007) and Prosser (2011).
constructed, continuously reshaped and negotiated, rather than something definite, objective, and static.
In an overview of current trends in visual research, Prosser (2011) outlines four different areas evolving in visual research:
representation of visual research, technology and visual methods, training in visual methods, and participatory visual methods. At the end of 1960s, visual research grew to combine researcher and participant insights and visual elicitation; using photographs or drawings in a research interview to stimulate response is one of the most commonly used methods within the participatory visual research methods (Prosser, 2011, p. 484). With the purpose of researching students’ multimodal designing, this study is placed in the last category, participatory visual methods.
During the past decade, educational researchers have started to focus on youth as producers of media and multimodal production as a form of literacy, especially in the field of media education (Buckingham, 2003; Burn & Parker, 2003; Gilje, 2010; 2011) and new literacy practices (for an overview, see Miller, 2013). Participatory video for researching youth identity and learning (e.g. Halverson, 2010; Gibbons, 2010; Lindstrand, 2006; Öhman-Gullberg, 2009) has developed the methodology in educational research and influenced the research field of literature education, where interest in multimodal composing in response to literature has started to grow (see e.g. Jocius, 2013; Miller, 2011; Mills, 2011a; McVee, Bailey &
Shanahan, 2008). However, studies that include visual and multimodal designing in the research design – particularly related to literary reading – are still rare.
In this study, visual methodology is applied through participatory visual methods of a group of students’ collective designing of a digital video in response to a literary text, as well as the students’ final digital video. Also, visual material such as the students’ storyboard and visual drawings and sketches are used to support the analyses, although not analysed in detail. Additionally, the students’ working process is documented with audio-visual recordings. As emphasised above, the video recordings are not viewed as objective or the camera
as a tool for capturing the “truth”, but as data material generated to get an insight into the students’ meaning-making during the transmediation process. Multimodality is methodologically applied as a central part of the research design to give recognition to and acknowledge students’ meaning-making using a multiplicity of modes, and is also applied in the analytical framework for unpacking the empirical material (see Section 4.4 for elaboration of the analytical process).