"I'm the first video Voicethread–it's pretty sweet, I'm pumped": Gender and Self-Expression on an Interactive Multimodal Platform

Abstract

This study explores how male and female users of Voicethread.com, an interactive multimodal web 2.0 platform that allows asynchronous commenting via text, audio, and video, communicate and perform identity through self-expression in different semiotic modes. A quantitative computer-mediated discourse analysis of three public English-language Voicethreads found that in video and audio comments, both genders express more positive attitudes; they are also more self-conscious and ego-focused. The text comments express more neutral and negative attitudes, especially when written by males, but they are also more socially interactive. With few exceptions, female communication patterns resemble those for audio and video, while male communication patterns resemble those for text. We propose explanations for these findings and discuss their implications for identity performances in interactive multimodal environments.

Keywords

• multimodality
• attitudes
• gender