Diverse Texts in Online Spaces: Online Multimodal Reading Strategies and Civic Engagement with Social Issues

This article reconceptualizes the notion of diverse texts in literacy education by extending it beyond traditional print-based materials to include online multimodal texts that integrate images, videos, and written language to engage students with social issues. Drawing on a case study of four sixth-grade students in South Korea, this study examines how elementary readers make meaning from multimodal online texts about child labor that contain visuals, videos, and written words. Multiple data sources including verbal protocols, screen-recorded reader–computer interactions, retrospective interviews, and written pre- and post-knowledge reports were analyzed to capture students’ strategic and civic engagement processes. Findings indicate that students employed a range of online multimodal reading strategies to comprehend texts while also demonstrating shifts in civic orientations, moving from personally responsible perspectives toward more participatory and justice-oriented stances. Although their reading paths differed, students grappled with issues of justice and inequality, suggesting that online multimodal reading can serve as a space for developing civic literacy practices. These findings position multimodal texts, which consist of more than one mode of representation, as a form of diverse texts that not only support comprehension but also foster civic learning, engagement, and children’s emerging civic agency in navigating complex social issues in digital environments.