Taking Youth Production Seriously: Analyzing Multimodal Data to Understand Identity in Action

Erica Halverson · David Woods · Michelle Bass

Narrative theorists have long argued that storytelling is the primary mechanism by which people construct public identities (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Labov, 1997). What constitutes storytelling, however, is no longer what these theorists envisioned; storytelling by everyday people is no longer just about composing texts and oral narratives, but rather the expression of ideas through multiple media including print and digital text, still and moving images, music, animation, and games. And just as narrative theorists have argued for the inextricable connection between stories and identities, new media scholars have begun to identify these multimodal spaces as sites for identity construction. Willett, Burn, and Buckingham (2005) argue that “identity” features prominently in multimodal composition: “New media production is as much about producing identities and social spaces as it is about creating media… Through different media forms young people are described as performing, defining, and exploring their identities” (p. 2).

While we know something about the work youth do as they compose in multiple media including videogames (Gee, 2003; Squire, 2006), online virtual worlds (Kafai & Giang, in press; Steinkuehler, 2006), participatory fan cultural practices (Ito, in press; Jenkins, 2006), and in the digital media arts (Fleetwood, 2005; Hull & Katz, 2006; Lambert, 2002; Jocson, 2005), we lack mechanisms for analyzing the products, especially when it comes to understanding the relationship between storytelling and identity. Analyzing the products of a rich, complex literacy practice is a critical way to make sense of how youth engage with issues of identity through the media they create. This is especially important for youth who feel marginalized in mainstream institutions and do not have opportunities to explore a positive sense of self in traditional institutional contexts. Understanding how the construction of multimodal representation supports identity development processes can help us to bring these new media literacy practices to youth who are most in need of alternative mechanisms for engaging in positive identity work.

In this symposium, we propose to contribute to this conversation in three ways:

• We will introduce Transana 2.3, video analysis software that affords the analysis of multimodal products. Specifically, the software allows users to construct multiple, simultaneous transcripts in order to highlight and compare different modes such as sound, visual imagery, and camera angles;
• We will describe an analytic method for analyzing films produced by youth as a way to understand how adolescents use multimodal composition as a way to explore and represent complex issues of identity; and
• We will present the case of one youth film organization, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, and use our analytic methods to analyze their corpus of films. We will describe commonalities and differences among the films that emerge as a result of our analysis.

While our work here focuses on filmmaking as youth production, the analytic tool and framework we present here has implications beyond film to other media where researchers may want to examine youth production and the production process, particularly in gaming.

References

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Fleetwood, N. R. (2005). Authenticating practices: Producing realness, performing youth. In S. Maira & E. Soep (Eds.), Youthscapes: The popular, the national, the global (pp. 155–172). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.

Hull, G. A., & Katz, M. (2006). Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling. Research in the Teaching of English, 41(1), 43–81.

Ito, M. (in press). Mobilizing the imagination in everyday play: The case of Japanese media mixes. In S. Livingstone & K. Drotner (Eds.), International handbook of children, media and culture.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Jocson, K. M. (2005, February). Teacher as learner in DV poetry: Toward a praxis of engaging literacies in alternative spaces for learning. Current Issues in Education, 8(5). Retrieved July 31, 2007, from http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume8/number5/

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Labov, W. (1997). Some further steps in narrative analysis. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7(1–4), 395–415.

Squire, K. D. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experiences. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 19–29.

Steinkuehler, C. A. (2006). Massively multiplayer online videogaming as participation in a Discourse. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 13(1), 38–52.

Willett, R., Burn, A., & Buckingham, D. (2005). New media, production practices, learning spaces. Education, Communication, and Information, 5(1), 1–3.