Archived

This content is available here for research, reference, and/or recordkeeping.

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6721-5051

Date Available

8-7-2026

Year of Publication

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Education

Department/School/Program

Education Sciences

Faculty

Janice Almasi

Faculty

Ryan Crowley

Abstract

This critical multimodal discourse analysis examined how five teacher-influencers aligned with the Science of Reading (SoR) movement performed authority, constructed discourses, and used affective and semiotic resources in viral TikTok videos about reading instruction. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen's (2001) multimodal social semiotics, Fairclough's (1992) critical discourse analysis, Foucault's (1977, 1982) theorizations of power, Papacharissi's (2014) theory of affective publics, Ong's (1982) secondary orality, and Taussig's (1993) mimesis and alterity, this interpretive, qualitative, multiple-case study analyzed fifty viral TikTok videos and four semi-structured interviews with teacher-influencers. Data were analyzed through within-case and within-mode coding, cross-modal analysis, and cross-case analysis following Stake's (2006) multiple-case study framework.

Three assertions were constructed during the analysis. First, teacher-influencers performed authority through proximity to principled practice and conversion narratives, enacting a form of pastoral power (Foucault, 1982) sustained by relational trust, care, and shared experience. Second, the discourses creators circulated were constructed through heteromimetic uptake from professional development organizations such as IMSE and LETRS and maintained through automimetic iteration, in which content was repeated, branded, and commercialized over time. Third, the creators presented reading instruction with instructional certainty across semiotic modes, positioning pedagogical practices as either helpful or harmful and using affective resources, including trending sounds, facial expressions, gesture, and pop-culture allusions, to maintain the boundary between them.

Findings suggest that teacher-influencers operated within a system of authority in which professional development organizations increasingly mediated the relationship between reading research and practitioner knowledge in public discourse, supplanting the traditional role of universities and scholarly communities in disseminating research to practitioners. Implications for teacher educators, literacy researchers, and in-service teachers are discussed.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2026.419

Archival?

Archival

Download

Share

COinS