Multimodal Communication in the University: Surveying Faculty Across Disciplines

TLDR: The authors conducted a survey of faculty at a research-intensive public university and found that faculty across disciplines use multiple modes of communication in their professional work, their scholarly communication, and their pedagogy.

Abstract: While a strong case has been made for addressing multimodality in composition, the case has been less clear for WAC/WID and CxC programs and research. Studies of disciplinary communication have documented the use of multiple modes in a number of fields, but few engage directly with theories of multimodality or with multimodality in context of changes related to networked, digital media. This study presents a snapshot of multimodal communication practices and assignments across disciplines developed through a survey of faculty at a research-intensive public university. Quantitative results indicate that, with some disciplinary variation, faculty across disciplines use multiple modes of communication in their professional work, their scholarly communication, and their pedagogy. Qualitative analysis of faculty responses complicates this picture with diverse conceptualizations of the relationships between modes. Themes related to faculty experiences of genre change and to the challenges of communicating about multimodality across disciplines are also addressed. These results justify the need for professional development efforts focused on multimodality in the context of WAC/WID and CxC programs and for continued research on multimodality in university contexts, even as they point to the challenges of communicating across disciplines that lack shared vocabulary. [1] The conversations seemed to be going well. A couple of groups had already started sketching rubrics on their whiteboards and were earnestly discussing what criteria to include. This faculty workshop on evaluating multimodal assignments had been prompted by questions raised about assessment at an earlier workshop on multimodal assignments. Vanessa was pleased to see the depth of engagement between lecturers and graduate teaching assistants. Both had much to offer each other on this topic. A lecturer in a group that had yet to start drawing or writing raised his hand. Vanessa squeezed past another group to join them. \"How's it going?\" Vanessa tried to sound upbeat, but she had misgivings. At the earlier workshop, a substantial amount of time had been spent addressing concerns about the appropriateness of multimodal assignments for a WID-based first-year composition curriculum. Vanessa hoped those