Visual and Multimodal Research in Organization and Management Studies

2A Social Semiotic Approach to Multimodality

The term multimodality designates both a field of research, that is, the phenomenon to be studied, and a particular approach to the study of the phenomenon. As a field of research, multimodality is the phenomenon that all communication integrates a range of meaning-making resources, that is, images, words, sound, etc. Different meaning-making resources make up different modes, so we can talk about a visual mode, a verbal mode, an aural mode. These modes can be further subdivided into other modes, such as a mode for colour, a mode for light, a mode for speech, or a mode for writing, and on an even more concrete level, we can talk about, for example, a mode for photography, a mode for paintings, or a ...