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Toward digital equity

A critical model of digital multimodal composing

 | University of Manitoba
 | The University of British Columbia
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Digital multimodal composing (DMC) is often framed in terms of the use of digital tools to make meaning through multiple modes such as language, image, sound, and gesture. Yet such a focus can make DMC appear to be a neutral process of assembling semiotic resources, rather than a social practice shaped by unequal relations of power. Composing has long been understood as a process of identity construction, and research on DMC has shown that embedded within its practices are inequalities and ideologies that must be examined if DMC is to become agentive and transformative. To cast a light on these issues, this conceptual article offers a redefinition of DMC and draws on Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2015). Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 36–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar model of investment to propose a critical model of DMC. Centering the interconnected dimensions of identity, capital and ideology, this proposed model highlights how learners are positioned and position themselves in DMC processes, how access to material, linguistic, semiotic, cultural, and social resources is unevenly distributed and differentially valued, and how norms, policies, and patterns of control shape the conditions of participation. It asserts DMC as dynamic, recursive, and nonlinear practices that unfold across five interrelated processes: gathering, imagining, integrating, reflecting, and sharing. Mapping identity, capital, and ideology across these processes, the article shows how attention to power can help explain both the constraints that circumscribe DMC and its potential to challenge exclusionary conditions, particularly in language learning contexts. The paper concludes by outlining implications of a socially situated, ideological and power-laden perspective of DMC for educators and researchers.
Article outline
  • 1.0Introduction
  • 2.0DMC as a social practice circumscribed by power
    • 2.1Negotiating unequal access to and deployment of resources
    • 2.2Resisting ideological control and positioning
    • 2.3Asserting one’s legitimacy
  • 3.0The need for a critical model of DMC
    • 3.1Distributed and negotiated identities
    • 3.2Unequal conditions of access, control, recognition, and possibility
    • 3.3Ideology: From stabilizing norms to discursive transformation
  • Conclusion and implications
  • Author queries
  • References
References (52)
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