Reading World Social Work Day 2010 through Multi-modal Analysis

Abstract

This paper considers World Social Work Day 2010, a digital media story created and shared on YouTube by the International Federation of Social Workers. Multi-modal analysis is used to reveal the multi-vocal nature of the text and to consider the particular social work discourses used in this digital narrative. Connections between and across digital texts are used to explore the capacity of digital media to produce multiple meanings and to allow texts to exist in multiple contexts simultaneously. Post-structural perspectives framing this analysis encourage consideration of the potential meanings of globalization in social work, particularly when narrative texts are shared via online digital media environments and interpreted by both intended and unforeseen audiences.