What do we know about YouTube content about academic writing? A multimodal analysis

Abstract

The provision of academic language and literacy (ALL) support is increasingly shaped by the digital university and the commercialisation of higher education. This article undertakes a multimodal discourse analysis of YouTube content about ALL, turning critical attention to digital videos created by ALL practitioners and university students. Using an academic literacies framework and a schema of YouTube presenter and hosting styles, this article considers the discursive features that shape the digital videos’ messages, the multimodal features that shape their visual organisation, and the external factors that appear to influence their creation. While the ‘unbundled university’ refers to the disaggregation of higher education into its different components, usually by for-profit educational companies, this emerging concept may be equally relevant to publicly available YouTube content about ALL. This study’s findings raise questions about the degree to which YouTube content seeking to support students’ ALL development represents an extension of the unbundled university.