Multimodal Hip Hop Productions as Media Literacies

Abstract

This study draws on ethnographic data from a year-long multimodal media production (MMP) course and the experience of an African American female adolescent who used the production of multimodal Hip Hop texts to express her creativity and growing socially conscious view of the world. The study demonstrates how students made meaning multimodally and how media production, in combination with participating in community-based research, provided powerful opportunities for youth to develop new literacies, especially critical media literacies.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of The Educational Forum for the following free supplemental resources: Figure 1 and Figure 2, which show pictures of Gina and her group, the lyrics to the raps, gestures used with the raps, and other pertinent information.]

Keywords::

• Hip Hop
• media literacies
• multiliteracies
• multimodal media production
• new literacies
• urban education

Acknowledgments

Note: The names of people and cities have been changed.