Bridging the Gap. Polyphony and Multimodality in Online Media Formats   

In this paper I want to reflect on a methodological gap between multimodal discourse analysis and its theoretical framework of social semiotics on the one hand, and the theory of polyphonic discourse, on the other. Both social semiotics and theory of polyphonic discourse recognize the problem of parallel existence of discursive positions. However, the problem lies in the fact that the latter one is not applied on multimodal texts and the first one does not recognize concurring positions between different modalities in one text. I will show how the proposed model can be applied on the example of a news portal on German public TV-station ARD dedicated to the topic of financial crisis in Germany. I will tackle the problem of medial and social origin of used semiotic resources (visual, textual, audio material) and try to draw conclusions regarding their semiotic mechanisms and discursive goals.

Multimodal discourse analysis is established as a method which observes interaction of different representation systems. Moreover it has shown that it is applicable for analysis of text microunits (Knox 2007), larger text formats (Kress and van Leeuwen 1998, 2006) and even trans- and intermedial complexes (Lemke 2002). In other words it covers three dimensions of micro, meso and macro analysis of medial format. In addition to that social semiotics perform the description and analysis of social context in which the text formats are made, the content decided about and meaning-making-mechanisms inherent to the media format. This social perspective should add a pragmatic aspect (of resources used) according to the questions “what do they do?” rather than “what do they stand for?”. This last dimension is closely related to the representations one needs/wants to share and the discursive positioning.

Machin and van Leeuwen (2007) are also analyzing the usage of ready-made visual elements in the media formats which is a further particularization of the microtextual dimension and at the same time an important insight into hypermedial dimension which goes to the question of the social – beyond the question “what does it do?” to “who does it?”. It connects the social background of the text creation process with the media representation. On the other hand, the theory of discourse polyphony (Angermüller 2007) considers coexistence of parallel ideological positions denied or confirmed by the usage of specific discourse markers. They can be used as a starting point for the utterance being implicitly confirmed as preconstructions (Pêcheux 1985) so they cannot even be questioned without letting the discursive situation fall apart, or they are a part of a constellation where their position suggests the quality (positive or negative value) of the given position. The talk proposes a framework which looks at proportions in the representation consisting of its micro, meso and macro dimension in the multimodal discourse.

References:

Angermüller, Johannes (2007): Nach dem Strukturalismus. Theoriediskurs und intellektuelles Feld in Frankreich. Bielefeld: Transcript.

Knox, John (2009): Punctuating the home page: image as language in an online newspaper. Discourse & Communication 3, S. 145–172.

Kress, Gunther; Van Leeuwen, Theo (1998): Front Pages: The (Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout. In A. Bell and P. Garrett (Hrsg.): Approaches to Media Discourse, London: Blackwell. S.186–219.

Kress, Gunther; Van Leeuwen, Theo (2006): Reading images.

Lemke, Jay L. (2002): Travels in hypermodality. Visual Communication 1, 299–325.

Pêcheux, Michel (1982): Language, Semantics, and Ideology. New York: St. Martin’s Press