Multilingual youths’ digital activism through multimodal composing in the post-pandemic era

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following a multiple case study design, this paper examines multilingual youths’ digital multimodal composing of photo journals, slides and video narratives during a digital innovation project that was implemented by their teachers in their university-based English courses. Multiple sources of data were collected, including semi-structured interviews, stimulated recalls and student-authored multimodal compositions. A qualitative and multimodal analysis reveals new forms of digital civic literacy practices through multilingual and multimodal communication, including disclosing ethnic minority’s unequal access to space during the pandemic, offering solutions to increasing public acceptance of pandemic-control-related Apps, and educating the public about health-and-safety-keeping during the pandemic. These findings indicate that contemporary youths’ multilingual and multimodal digital communication can be conceptualised through digital multimodal composing, which affords a translanguaging space for youths’ digital activism towards social justice-oriented literacy actions. The findings refute stereotyping contemporary multilingual youths as passive users of digital media and lend further support to the importance of highlighting contemporary youths’ multilingual and multimodal lived experiences and voices with an asset-based orientation. Implications on how multilingual youths’ digital activism can be promoted through digital multimodal composing for more purposeful and social justice-oriented multilingual and multimodal digital communication are also discussed.