Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies: the role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives

Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives Íris Susana Pires Pereira Research Centre on Education Institute of Education, University of Minho, Portugal ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0647-2319 Ângela Campos Agrupamento de Escolas de Professor Óscar Lopes Portugal Abstract This paper aims to contribute to the construction of multiliteracies pedagogy. We argue that the analysis of focalisation is an essential dimension in the multiliteracies pedagogy aimed at promoting the development of the critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Our point is sustained by the case study of the focalisation in an animated narrative comprising a hybrid multimodal text offered for students learning about refugees in a public digital platform. We performed a critical analysis of the visual narrative supported by a grammar of focalisation in animated images and a framework for critical analysis of multimodal discourse. The analysis shows that viewers (and characters) are differently positioned throughout the text as uninvolved observers of the detached ‘others’; as emphatic witnesses of the others’ suffering; and as committed social actors who see the refugees as ‘one of us’, which we interpret as conveying different ideological meanings associated with assimilatory or liberating ideologies. We discuss the major implications of our findings concerning the role of focalisation in the enactment of critical analysis of multimodal texts, the interdependence of critical analysis vis-à-vis the other learning processes as well as the need for teachers’ professional development as a pre-requisite to construct the pedagogy of multiliteracies. Key-words: 2 to 6 Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Multimodality; Visual narrative; Critical literacy; Focalisation; Multiliteracies; Critical analysis of multimodal discourse Corresponding author: Íris Susana Pires Pereira Instituto de Educação /Institute of Education Universidade do Minho Campus de Gualtar 4710-057 Braga, PORTUGAL [email protected] Acknowledgement This work was funded by CIEd – Research Centre on Education, Institute of Education, University of Minho, projects UIDB/01661/2020 and UIDP/01661/2020, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-PT. Biographical notes: Íris Susana Pires Pereira, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Institute of Education and a member of the Research Centre on Education (CIED) at the University of Minho, Portugal. Her research focuses on multimodal literacy, the pedagogy of multiliteracies and literacy teachers’ learning. She has published in several international journals such as Changing English. Studies in Culture and Education, Pedagogies. An International Journal, Language and Education, Research Papers in Education, Language, Pedagogy and Culture, L1 and Teacher Development. She has recently co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Digital Literacies in Early Childhood. (https://iris2796.wixsite.com/irispereira) Ângela Maria Castro Bragança Campos is a MA high-school teacher at the Agrupamento de Escolas de Professor Óscar Lopes, Portugal. Her Master specialization is on Critical Literacy teaching and her research focuses on Critical Literacy and the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies in Portuguese as L1. Together with Íris Pereira, she has published in Changing English. Studies in Culture and Education and recently presented a paper on multimodal analysis at the Annual Meeting of the Portuguese Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Linguistics Association. She is currently preparing her PhD research project on the development of a critical, multimodal literacy learning. Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Introduction Multiliteracies is generally presented as “an agenda for the future of education, reclaiming educational processes and systems that are in many respects very different from those of the recent past” (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012, 28). The rise of the information economy, the increasing social diversity and the growth of the digital communication technologies are key societal challenges sustaining the multiliteracies call for pedagogical transformation of the literacy curriculum in order to equally empower all students to face these new social demands (author, 2020; Cope and Kalantzis, 2009; Mills, 2009; The New London Group, 1996). Being informed by a sociocultural understanding of literacy and a semiotic understanding of communication, the multiliteracies agenda has assumed an expanded object of literacy learning that includes the learning of multimodal meaning making (The New London Group, 1996; Kress, 2010, 2015). A set of core socio constructivist learning processes has also been assumed as defining ‘the different kind of things that learners can do to know’ (Cope and Kalantzis, 2015, p. 17). They comprise experiencing, conceptualizing, analysing, and applying, together involving “learning by doing as well as by thinking” (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012, p. 25). This repertoire of pedagogical moves is assumed to be central in producing “deeper, broader, more trustworthy, more insightful and more useful knowledge” (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012, p. 249). In this paper we resume these arguments in order to sustain our major tenet, which reconciles multimodality and the learning process of analysing critically in digital contexts of communication. Multimodality is one of the key meaning-making features in the design of texts brought along by the digitalization of communication (Jewitt, 2005, Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) 2008; Kress, 2010; Mills, 2009; Rowsell et al., 2013; Serafini, 2014; Walsh, 2008). Modes comprise material resources for meaning-making that are “socially shaped and culturally given” (Kress, 2010, p. 79). In digital communication contexts, not only are the written and oral modes of verbal language used to build up representations and communicate meanings, but also static and moving images, colour, sound, music and layout are employed intentionally. This means that beyond merely using the written code, new meaning-making skills are required to make meaning of digital, multimodal texts. Analysing critically is assumed as an interrogation of “the interests, motives and ethics that may motivate knowledge claims… an ever vigilant process of reflection about purposes and interests” (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012, p. 247). While multimodality has also been assumed as a tool in the ideological positioning of meaning makers (van Leeweun, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2013), thus demanding that learners go beyond the represented meanings by evaluating how these are conveyed through the manipulation of semiotic choices, to the best of our knowledge much needs to be done to develop specific grammars and metalanguage to enact critical analysis of multimodal discourse in educational settings (Mills, 2009). In this paper, we aim to contribute to the construction of such knowledge. We sustain our argument upon the study of a video used as the main text in one lesson available in an online educational platform. The video is a hybrid of an expository verbal text and a visual narrative about refugees, turning it, as well as the whole lesson, into an unexpected potential instantiation of the major tenets sustaining the multiliteracies pedagogic agenda, namely diversity, multimodal digital representation, and critical analysis. For reasons that will be made clear later on, the major question leading our study was the following: How could the visual narrative become the object of critical analysis Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) aimed at enhancing learners’ meaning making? The results of our inquiry allow us to specifically contend that the analysis of the semiotic options for the construction of focalisation in visual narratives plays a fundamental role in knowing by critical analysis, and that the grammar of focalization emerges as an inescapable tool in enacting such analysis. Next section systematizes the main Theoretical perspectives sustaining our study. The Methods section describes the research procedures that we followed. The Findings present the main results, that we then scrutinize in the Discuss and Conclusions sections. Theoretical perspectives Two major theoretical perspectives sustained our inquiry, namely critical analysis of multimodal discourse (van Leewuen, 2013) and the grammar of visual narrative’s focalisation (O’Brien, 2014). By bringing together both frameworks we identified the grammar of focalisation as an essential tool in developing a critical multimodal analysis. Critical analysis of multimodal discourse Critical analysis of multimodal discourse, as assumed in this article, draws on two main strands of studies of applied linguistics with significant impact in the pedagogies of multiliteracies (Djonov and Zhao, 2014; Van Leeuwen, 2013), namely critical discourse analysis (CDA) and multimodality. CDA grounds on the idea that language invisibly works to convey and legitimize meanings that are associated with dominant social groups and assumed as the norm, while silencing and thus invalidating others (Gee,1996; Luke & Freebody, 1999). By doing this, language becomes a tool that generates inequalities, injustices and oppression: it crafts and empowers identities that are aligned with dominant Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) meanings while marginalizing ‘other’ meanings and ‘other’ identities, thus carving social inequalities and, indeed, non democratic forms of social diversity. CDA employs critical discourse analysis to unveil such biases and open way to construct empathetic critical literacies targeting praxis, i.e., social agency for social justice and social (re)positioning (Freire & Macedo, 2003; Golden & Pandya, 2019; Van Leeuwen, 2006). Norman Fairclough’s work (2001 [1989], 2010 [1995]) has played an important contribution to the extension of CDA studies to education, with the specific aim of developing students’ critical consciousness of different effects of ideological representation upon their social positioning (authors, 2014). Van Leeuwen’s (2008) adaptation of linguistic CDA methods to multimodal representations became an important contribution to overcome CDA’s ‘looking only at written and spoken language’ (van Leeuwen, 2013, p.1). Van Leeuwen argues that ‘if images seem to just allude to things and never “say them explicitly”, we need to make these allusions explicit’ (van Leeuwen, 2000, p. 335), thus reclaiming more attention to critical discourse analysis of texts in which other modes besides verbal language are used to represent meanings (Djonov and Zhao, 2014; Kress, 2010). Our critical analysis of the visual narrative was framed by Van Leeuwen’s (2008) specific assumption that the relations between depicted people and the viewer are a cornerstone in the critical analysis of visual representations. Van Leeuwen identified the social distance, the social relation and the social interaction as three essential meanings when performing critical analysis, claiming that, in all three cases, the relation is symbolic, imaginary and ‘all three must always be there’ (p.141). He further identified the major semiotic choices for visually representing each of these meanings, namely distance, angle and the gaze, respectively, as the objects of the analysis. As assumed by Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) van Leeuwen (2008), critical analysis of multimodal discourse focuses on how different combinations and gradations of these semiotic choices can be interpreted as strategies for visually representing people as ‘others’ by constructing distanciation, disempowerment and objectivation. As van Leeuwen defends, the critical scrutiny of the use of these semiotic choices aims to unveil how visual representations can be used to show the exclusion, the keeping-at-a-distance of people, or to ourselves exclude and keep at a distance members of our own school class, our community, our own country, etc., as in the case of the school textbooks’ (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 141). The grammar of visual narrative’s focalisation The term focalisation was introduced by narratologist Gerald Genette (1980) as a replacement for perspective and point of view. According to the author, in the context of text analysis the concept of focalisation distinguishes two main narrative categories, mood and voice, avoiding the confusion between the questions who sees? and who speaks?. The variations in point of view that occur in the course of a narrative can thus be analysed as changes in focalisation (Genette, 1980). Genette’s concept was later developed by Mieke Bal (1999, 2017), who defines focalisation as ‘the relationship between the “vision”, the agent that sees, and that which is seen’ (1999, p. 146), which becomes a component of the content of the narrative as it c’olours the story with subjectivity (Bal, 2017, p. 7). He defines the focaliser as ‘the point from which the elements are viewed. That point can lie with a character or outside it’ (1999, p. 146). Bal proposes that narratological analysis can be extended to visual narratology, as the ‘narrativity of films is obvious’ (1999, p. 161): Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) In narrative discourse, focalization is the direct content of the linguistic signifiers. In visual art, it would then be the direct content of visual signifiers like lines, dots, light and dark, and composition. (1999, p. 162) Bal emphasizes the technical nature of the term ‘focalisation’, which is particularly relevant for our argument since it ‘will help us keep our attention on the technical side of such a means of manipulation’ (1999, p. 144). In previous work, we focused on verbal focalisation as responsible for the reader’s positioning in assimilation or liberation ideologies (Yoon, Simpson, and Haag, 2010; authors, 2014), which we used to add evidence to Stephens (1992) claims for the need that students are explicit taught how to consciously understand focalisation as always ‘presented with a certain interpretation of the elements that are far from being neutral or innocent’ (Bal, 2017, p. 137). In fact, Bal argues that focalisation ‘has an overarching position with respect to the other aspects’ (2017, p. 150) and it is therefore ‘the most important, most penetrating, and subtlest means of manipulation’ (idem). Focalisation is therefore an important dimension for the construction of ideological positionings, and it came up for us as an inescapable analytical dimension in order to perform the critical analysis of the relations between depicted people and the viewer in the visual narrative. As Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2012, p. 18) put it, Whereas the question of ‘who tells’ can only be relevant for verbal text, that of ‘who sees’ is pertinent for both verbal and visual strands of meaning ... the viewer can be positioned to assume different viewing personas– either that of an outside observer or alternatively of a viewer ‘participating’ fleetingly in that world through a relationship with, or identification as, one of the characters. Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Leeuwen, 2008:138) at a remote distance in a horizontal plane. The smallness of the images accentuates the social distance. In Fig. 2. the non-involvement is actually intensified by the oblique angle with which the refugees are presented, constructing a viewer’s sideline position with the depicted people without communicating with them. This option determines that ‘what you see here is not part of our world, it is their world, something we are not involved with’ (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 136). In Fig 3. the social distance is amplified, offering a blurred group view. The viewer is positioned in a powerful position looking down at refugees “as below us” (van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 141). Refugees now are seen from the vertical high angle and reduced to undistinguishable creatures trapped against a wall, allowing the viewer ‘to exert imaginary symbolic power over that person’ (van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 139). Finally, the social distance and non involvement is also seen, and enhanced, in Fig 4. In this case, there is double focalisation since there is an external viewer whose view is momentarily aligned with a secondary (external) character, which is a vulture, previously vigorously seen and heard in the sky but now observing the refugees at a distance. Fig. 1. Blurred human figures seen at a remote distance Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Fig. 2. Non-involvement being intensified by the oblique angle Fig. 3. A powerful view looking down at refugees Fig. 4. Vultures observing the refugees Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Interestingly, there is only one single shot of non-mediated focalisation in which the focalised is not a refugee. Shot 14 is a detour in the refugee’s narrative introducing a migrant’s walk, preceded by the written words REFUGEE and MIGRANT and followed by the word VIOLENCE. While the words are not relevant for our analysis, it is indeed relevant to note that the migrant is seen by the same focalizing options that keep the viewer socially distant from refugees, since the migrant is again seen at a distance in a horizontal plane. The viewer’s social positioning as an uninvolved observer is therefore reinforced with this shot. We have interpreted these semiotic combinations as strategies for the construction of distanciation, of disempowerment and of objectivation of refugees, that is, for visually representing them as ‘others’ with a possible imaginary effect of keeping-them-at-adistance, offering their dramas ‘to our gaze as a spectacle for our dispassionate scrutiny’ (van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 140). We consider that these dominant focalising options legitimise this as the dominant social view, naturalizing ‘the alienated others’ and evidencing how ‘images may be ideologically effective precisely because they do not engage us [viewers] in overt or covert dialogic negotiation’ (Painter, Martin, & Unsworth, 2012, p. 19) with refugees. The viewer as an emotionally involved witness; the refugees as humans enduring suffering Although less frequent and interspersed with unmediated focalisation, the mediated focalisation, which positions the viewer as an internal observer of the dramas of the Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) characters, is also used in this narrative. There are instances in which the viewer ‘sees’ the refugees ‘along with the character’ or else ‘as character’. In Fig. 5, the viewer is aligned with the family, which in the animated narrative is followed by Fig 6., again aligned with the main character, now a lonely traveller looking at a long empty space, allowing a symbolic interpretation of helplessness as if no solution for her drama could be found. This alignment with the main character’s perspective is achieved through ‘back view focalisation’, through which the viewer sees the character ‘while also seeing what the character sees from that character’s perspective’ (Unsworth, 2014b, p. 205). Two major meaning differences are introduced by this focalising option, one concerning social distance and the other the attitude that is constructed for the viewer. Through the proximate back view, the viewer is socially closer to the characters, constructing affiliation but without total identification with them. Fig. 5 The viewer is aligned with the family Fig. 6. The viewer is aligned with the main character, now alone Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Figs 7. and 8. are instances of mediated focalisation as character. In such cases, the social distance is reduced by the camera, which is positioned where the character is. In this case, the viewer is ‘positioned to see through the character’s eyes’ (Painter, Martin, & Unsworth, 2012, p. 21), allowing her to see what the refugee sees, from her shoes, creating ‘an enhanced intimacy’ (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 178) between both. This is enhanced by the semi frontal horizontal plane, which encourages ‘strong viewer affiliation with this character’s vision or situation’ (O’Brien, 2014, p. 135). Fig. 7. The viewer sees through the character’s eyes Fig. 8 The viewer still sees through the character’s eyes Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) Figures 5-8 are the four unique mediated focalisation shots in the whole video, comprising a total of 1:00 minute. We have interpreted these semiotic combinations as strategies for an ‘emotional deconstruction’ of the dominant social view of distanciation, of disempowerment and of objectivation. Although scarce, these focalisation options of the depicted characters ‘shift the reader engagement from appreciative to emphatic’ (Unsworth, 2014b, p. 207, original italics), causing a rise in emotional involvement and empathy. In these moments, refugees are not at-a-distance; rather, their dramas are offered to our passionate scrutiny. In these rare moments, there is emotional dialogue, and a humanizing social view of the refugees is represented. A note is here due to the existence of an image shot in which the unmediated focalisation enhances this emotional bonding. This is captured in Fig 9., in which the semifrontal, almost close-up, shot of the main character’ face expression positions the viewer as an external yet closer observer of the character’s suffering, therefore constructing a closer relationship with the depicted character. Fig. 9 Semifrontal close up main character’s face expressing suffering Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) The viewer as a committed participant; the refugees as one of us In the coda of the narrative, in which only a sequence of six close-up shots of six different male and female refugees is presented for 24 seconds, the focalisation again becomes non mediated, although showing a very significant difference. The intimate proximity that the viewer gets from the characters through the close up shots, constructing an emotional involvement for the viewer, is constant here. Besides, there is also a frontal, horizontal plane, built through an eye-level angle with the viewer, now constructing social equity and identification among participants (cf. Fig 10). In this way, refugees are depicted as individualized in closely framed eye-level shots, shown as if they are ‘one of us’ (van Leeuwen, 2008) as saying ‘what you see here is part of our world, something we are involved in’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 136). On top of this, the characters directly gaze at the viewer, acknowledging her presence explicitly and addressing her with a ‘visual you’ (Kress van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 117), conveying an appeal or a demand for the viewer’s commitment. Fig. 10 Frontal close up shot Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) In these moments, refugees are fully identified and put face to face with viewers, powerfully deconstructing the wall between ‘us /them’ (Dijk, 2006). Through these focalisation options, the emotional dialogue now becomes rational and agentive, demanding for reflection, ethical discernment and social engagement with these people’s dramas. The viewer’s position is now expanded from emphatic to socially committed actor. Altogether, we have interpreted these final focalising options as representing a yet again deconstruction of the dominant social view of distance, of disempowerment and of objectivation, in this case imbued with a political ideology aligned with the principles of social justice and inclusion. Discussion Having addressed the questions leading the analysis of the visual narrative, we now turn to the major question that has motivated the study: How could the visual narrative become the object of critical analysis aimed at enhancing learners’ meaning making? The findings suggest that the semiotic options for the construction of the systems of focalisation come up as a relevant object of critical analysis in this visual narrative. Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) The analysis reveals the interpretative possibilities that are opened up to the viewer by performing a critical analysis of visual narrative focalisation. In particular, it gives strong evidence of significant ideological meanings constructed by the two major focalisation options for viewers about themselves as well as about refugees. The unmediated focalisation is the dominant option throughout the video and, regardless of different gradations of social distance and emotional involvement with the focalised, characters, the viewer is mainly positioned as a distant and detached external observer of the represented social reality. Shifts to a mediated focalisation ‘along with’ and ‘as characters’, far less used, construct closer relationships and enhance the viewer’s emphatic dialogue. Other significant visual meanings were further identified within unmediated focalisation, in this case constructed through choices for close-up shots with direct gaze demanding a commitment from the viewer to participate in this social reality, therefore broadening her understanding of the represented characters ‘as a focus for interpretive issues concerning difference, conformity, acceptance, and interpersonal outreach” (Unsworth, 2014b, p. 207). We have interpreted these semiotic choices as constructing different viewer’s positioning towards the represented characters, with significant ideological meanings. While viewers are socially distant and non-involved with refugees most part of the time, the visual narrative also offers the viewer the possibility for closer positionings with what she sees. Besides, while refugees are mainly represented as others that we observe, apart from ‘us’, they are also positioned as persons like us that observe us too. These different positionings correspond to assuming different ideologies, either assimilatory and conformist to social status quo or liberating, responsive and democratic (authors, 2014; Stephens, 1992), with a potential impact in viewers’ / learners’ learning about refugees. By performing the critical analysis of the focalising options in the visual narrative, it is Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. The role of focalisation in the development of critical analysis of multimodal narratives. Language & Education. 37 (1), 105122. (unedited final version) possible to uncover alternative ways to ‘envision’ the refugees, and, as a consequence, different yet meaningful answers to the question leading the TED-Ed lesson (‘What does it mean to be a refugee?). As such, exercises such as these nurture students’ inquiry and empathy and prepare them to live in a mediated and networked world, one where the veracity of every message should be questioned, or at least contextualized and acknowledged as having a specific perspective. (Funk et al., 2016, p. 19) However important these meanings are to prepare learners to diverse settings, they are only made explicit through critical analysis. We therefore consider that the critical analysis of the focalization in visual narratives as illustrated in our study has a potential important role to play in the construction of the pedagogy of multiliteracies. As we see it, its full enactment implies at least two major caveats. The first is that other dimensions of the pedagogy of multiliteracies, namely experience, conceptualization, and applying, need to be interrelated with critical analysis of multimodal discourse. In fact, while it is clear for us that the simple experience of viewing cannot assure that the (uninformed) viewer constructs critical meanings as described above (Unsworth, 2014a; Thomas, 2014), analysing critically per se cannot help learners achieve the best learning possible. For critical meaning making to be successful, specific and explicit conceptualising processes are needed that assure that learners understand the constructed nature of visual focalisation and that they know the critical analytical tool and associated metalanguage. We agree with Unsworth (2014b, p. 203) when he claims that ‘explicit meta-semiotic understanding can help students understand the ideological ‘constructedness’ of multimodal texts ‘and hence become a resource for critical comprehension and for enhancing students’ own multimodal digital narrative authoring’ Pereira, Í. S. P. & Campos, Â. (2023). Constructing the pedagogy of multiliteracies. 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