Australian universities engaging international students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A study of multimodal public communications with students

Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, university public communication channels have become unprecedentedly crucial in higher education settings. It is useful to consider how they have been used by universities as platforms for engaging international students. We collected data from three Australian universities: The University of Sydney, Curtin University and the University of New England. This data included COVID-19 information webpages, international student webpages, news/events webpages, and/or vice chancellor's video and text messages. Through an analysis of the data in terms of communicative acts and dimensions of engagement, we were able to identify the different constructions of roles and responsibilities at the three universities when engaging international students during the pandemic. These findings were interpreted in relation to the roles of universities in engaging with international students, and the value of a multimodal approach to researching engagement.