Toward multimodal inquiry: opportunities, challenges and implications of multimodality for research and scholarship

ABSTRACT

In this article, we suggest that we are witnessing a challenge to the hegemony of text-based knowledge in academic scholarship, brought about by newly available modes of expression, and a cultural shift in our notions of reading and writing, authorship, and networked knowledge production. The central question we address here concerns the implications of widening our ideas of acceptable forms of inquiry, analysis and representation in academic scholarship. As a collective of scholar-practitioners exploring new modes of expression and working both within and outside the formal structures of academia, we argue for the increasing significance of multimodal research in the contemporary context of academic inquiry. By more equitably valuing different ways of thinking, knowing and communicating, multimodal research can facilitate wider and more diverse participation in the production of knowledge, offer a more nuanced and ethical mode of inquiry, emphasize different ways of knowing and connecting, and make scholarship more broadly accessible beyond academic contexts. Here, we analyze the key opportunities facilitated by multimodal inquiry, as well as the obstacles that stand in the way of a wider adoption of this type of research in higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic scholarship
• multimodal research
• knowledge production
• collaborative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ioana Literat http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8192-769X

Notes

1 In fact, beyond this article, we have also conveyed this central argument as a multimodal poster presentation, incorporating images and video, and as an audio podcast, recorded collectively and shared publicly. These additional modes of conceptualizing and sharing our research have helped us to reach broader audiences and think about our argument and evidence in new and valuable ways.