Reflecting on the Period II of the MA

We are soon reaching the end of the second period of our master’s program. This is the best time to reflect on what we have been taught so far and, most of all, what we have found most interesting throughout this period. We have attended two courses in total: Design Thinking & Maker Culture and Machines of Knowledge; both being demanding and at the same time intriguing.

Design Thinking and Maker Culture was an introduction to a new design method, more human-centred and with the aim to combine what is desirable from a human perspective with what is economically and technologically feasible and affordable. I really enjoyed working in a team and creating a podcast about one of the broad themes, Multimodality. Multimodality is a way to provide access to a more complex way to learn and read, which addresses all our senses and modes (visual, aural, audio, linguistic, interaction) and help us think critically about the messages we encounter in a digital society. I would like to use multimodality as a way of making a platform more interactive and user-friendly, let alone explore the different aspects ranging from multiliteracies in social media as well as in pedagogy.

Machines of Knowledge introduced a methodology which was rather new to me: Text Analysis and Distant Reading. Through this methodology, one can analyze and interpret enormous digital content, such as social media posts, comments, and texts. What I really enjoyed in this course is the fact that one can combine the Text Analysis tool with various contemporary social issues, such as fake news, polarization, changes in the Digital Public Sphere, and racism. I would use this tool to get a better understanding on how social media could affect and maybe interrelate with the offline discourse, as well as play a critical role in the manipulation of common “ideas”. Taking into consideration the fast-changing society during and after the Pandemic, this topic would be a nice start to think of possible future work. All the more so, doing research to a particular audience with distinctive cultural and ideological background would make the results even more meaningful and accurate.

To conclude, both courses in the period II helped me create a solid theoretical framework and learn skills that paved the way for my future work in this master’s program.

2 Responses

  1. Rhys Shurey says:

    Good job on your reflection! I think both of your ideas sound very feasible and like they could be interesting. If you want to pursue an investigation into multimodality in pedagogy I would recommend that perhaps you need to narrow this research a little and look into teaching a particular age group, demographic etc. This could be especially interesting to look at in relation to students who are or were doing distant learning during the pandemic. You could compare the differences in experience of those who were taught using multimodal methods and those who weren’t.
    Regarding the second idea, I think that text analysis/distant reading seems like it would offer some fruitful insights into how ideas spread online -and again looking at the timeframe of the covid-19 period would be an interesting case study. I agree again that narrowing the target demographic of your study would be a good idea. You may want to consider whether you’d like to look for example if you look at the narratives spreading amongst the older generations, younger (digital native) generations, or compare the two. You could also conduct interviews/do some digital ethnography to gain some more qualitative data as well as your quantitative corpora!

  2. Mengxin says:

    Hi Elena!
    I think you participate in group work and learn new knowledge very well. Multimodality is an interesting topic and it can be used in almost all the domains, both work and life. And I think your idea about use multimodality to make a more interactive and user-friendly platform is pretty good, and I am looking forward to it! Because everyone wants to have a more friendly and attractive platform. But which kind of platform are you interested in? Because different platform needs a different way of using multimodality.
    It is true that text analysis is a very useful methodology to handle a large number of data. You have a really specific idea about your future work with this method, though the relationship between social media and ideas is complex. I have to say considering a distinctive culture and ideology is a great perspective.
    Good luck!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *