Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

created/constituted in the situated knowledge production process. In Ashmore’s (1989) reflexive
thesis on ‘sociology of scientific knowledge’, co-creation of knowledge – including research
knowledge – is considered as a ‘social negotiation’ of meanings. Linda Finlay (2002) uses a ‘metareflexive’
voice within her analysis to emphasize ‘how the researchers and intersubjective elements
impinge on and even transform research’. For the antifoundational qualitative research logic,
positions of the researcher(-s) and participants are multiple, and constantly shifting. In my
research framework, I try to deal with this “fluidity of conceptions” (Ashmore 1989) by
emphasizing the multiplicity of voices (rhetorical intentions) within designs, and follow Finlay’s
(2002) reflexive “maps” metaphor by considering ‘introspection, intersubjective reflection, mutual
collaboration, social critique and discursive deconstruction’ as analytical strategies.
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- Figure 6.2 Dimensions of validity and reliability (Jensen, 2010: 141)
In figure 6.2 (above), Klaus Bruhn Jensen’s conception of reliability and validity as subject-sign
relations is outlined. According to Jensen (2010), a reflexive approach to reliability and validity of
research depends on the dynamic sign-relations among the object and various subjects as socially
situated social actors. May (2002) associates the limits of reflexivity with ‘willingness to subject
one’s own position and what it does or does not authorize as a result to critical scrutiny” (May
2002: 2). I propose several strategies for dealing with these issues of subjectivity and reflexivity, all
of which - including research-as-bricolage, triangulation and multidimensional flexibility of
research design - should be considered in relation to the research questions and methodological
objectives (i.e. Denzin and Lincoln 2005). Triangulation of data resources, methods and
perspectives is an important strategy to enhance the potential to generalize from findings, as
multiple viewpoints as resources would expand the scope of analysis and enable the researcher to
compare/relate these views to each other within observed social structures. The relationship
between triangulation and validation is based on an idealist/relativist ontology and
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