Exploring multimodal registers in and across organizations and institutional fields: Sketching an approach for larger-scale multimodal analysis
Résumé
In this article, we develop methodology that enables a systematic analysis of the structural
aspects of multimodal discourse from larger amounts of data. While existing research in visual
organization studies has provided interesting insights into the content and meaning(s) of visual
and multimodal communication, comparably little is known about how precisely multimodal
communication establishes such meanings, suggests relationships between text producers,
topics, and audiences, and interacts with the written word. Conceptually, we suggest the concept
of ‘visual register’ as a way of capturing the particular repertoires of expression that the visual
offers and argue that studying such registers substantially contributes to understanding the
distribution of meanings in and across organizations and institutional fields, but also across
points in time. By drawing on the social semiotic concept of ‘metafunction’, we develop coding
advice that aims at facilitating the analysis of larger quantities of visual data while still
acknowledging the particular performativity of the visual mode. We illustrate our ideas with
empirical data on the reporting of Austrian publicly traded corporations about Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR), a complex and multivocal management idea that touches a variety of
topics and incorporates multiple levels of audience engagement with regard to a substantial
diversity of audiences.