Multimodal Literacy in a New Era of Educational Technology - Comparing Points of View in Animations of Children’s and Adult Literature

Oct 15, 2026

The paper examines how point of view is constructed differently across book and animated movie versions of literary works for children, pre-adolescents/early teenagers, and adolescents/adults. Using multimodal analysis, it compares interpersonal meaning to determine how viewers/readers are positioned relative to characters, and it adds ideational analysis to trace shifts in interpretive possibilities. Results show that even when verbal narration stays largely unchanged, animated adaptations significantly reconfigure the meaning potential through multimodal point-of-view design.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Interpersonal meanings in narrative images

Multimodal Literacy in a New Era of Educational Technology: Comparing Points of View in Animations of Children’s and Adult Literature Len Unsworth Australian Catholic University ECNU Review of Education 2024, Vol. 7(2) 384–405 © The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[DOI: 10.1177/20965311231179738](DOI: 10.1177/20965311231179738)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/20965311231179738)[journals.sagepub.com/home/roe](journals.sagepub.com/home/roe) Abstract Purpose: The paper shows the interpretive impact of different constructions of the point of view available to the reader/viewer in book and animated movie versions of a children’s picture book, a novel for pre-adolescents/early teenagers, and a graphic novel for adolescents and adults. Design/Approach/Methods: Excerpts from book and animated movie versions of the same story are compared using multimodal analysis of interpersonal meaning to show how the reader/viewer is positioned in relation to the characters in each version, complemented by analyses of ideational meaning to show the effect of point of view on interpretive possibilities. Findings: Focusing mainly on multimodal construction of point of view, the analyses show how interpretive possibilities of ostensibly the same story are signiﬁcantly reconﬁgured in animated adaptations compared with book versions even when the verbal narrative remains substantially unchanged. Originality/Value: The study shows that it is crucial to students’ critical appreciation of, and their creative contribution to, their evolving digital literary culture that in this new era of educational technology, attention in literacy and literary education focuses on developing understandings of digital multimodal narrative art, and that animated movie adaptations are not presented pedagogically as isomorphic with, or simply adjunct to, corresponding book versions. Corresponding author: Len Unsworth, Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University, North Sydney Campus, Level 2, 7 Mount St, North Sydney, PO Box 968, North Sydney, NSW 2059, Australia. Email: [len.unsworth@acu.edu.au](len.unsworth@acu.edu.au) Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as speciﬁed on the SAGE and Open Access page ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Keywords Animation, children’s literature, multimodality, point of view Date received: 25 February 2022; revised: 13 September 2022; accepted: 1 March 2023 Introduction The integration of literature and new technologies continues to evolve, maintaining a longstanding trajectory of literary adaptation and innovation with the ever-changing development of ﬁlms and new communication technologies. Novels, picture books, and graphic novels are increasingly being adapted as animated movies. This world of narrative versions is the norm for young people growing up in the 21st century, and this important cultural phenomenon warrants explicit attention in English language arts classrooms. The convergence of new developments in digital animation, along with the burgeoning of renowned contemporary literature now readily accessible as animated movies, and the recognition by societies and education systems of the distinctive narrative art of digital animated literature represents an important aspect of a new era for educational technology as a signiﬁcant creative form of multimodal social semiotic in the 21st century. It is, therefore, crucial to students’ critical a

FAQs

What does the study compare across different media versions?

It compares book and animated movie versions of the same story across multiple reader age groups, focusing on how point of view is constructed in each version.

How does the paper analyze point of view?

It uses multimodal analysis of interpersonal meaning to position the reader/viewer relative to characters, and it complements this with ideational meaning analysis to assess interpretive effects.

What is the key finding about animated adaptations versus book versions?

The study finds that multimodally constructed point of view in animations significantly reconfigures interpretive possibilities compared with book versions, even when the verbal narrative remains largely unchanged.

Oct 15, 2026

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