The discourse structure of video games:A multimodal discourse semantics approach to game tutorials

The article proposes a multimodal discourse semantics approach to the analysis of video game tutorials that provides a discourse pragmatic analysis of the game canvases in these tutorials. The study mainly builds on linguistic approaches to formal dynamic discourse semantics that have already been successfully applied to other multimodal artefacts. The article will showcase the application of the resulting ‘logic of multimodal discourse interpretation’ to two specific cases of video game tutorials. This will outline particular discourse relations holding between events and segments in the tutorials as distinctive features of this video game genre and show the discursive patterns of these instructions

#socialiseresponsibly. Analyzing the Rhetorical Structure of Heineken TV Commercials During the Pandemic

This work analyzes the efforts by the company Heineken to address in their marketing campaigns the social responsibility and wellbeing of their customers during the pandemic. By particularly looking at the audio-visual design strategies used in 15 TV commercials produced and published during the years 2020–2022, a multimodal analysis of the filmic montage structures examines how the company establishes a coherent process of core marketing and convinces recipients to socialize responsibly under pandemic conditions. The analysis follows the current trend in empirical multimodality research to pursue analyses of digital corpora with the theories and methods developed in the field. Particularly, it uses an ELAN annotation scheme for the description of specific camera techniques (such as camera distance and perspective) as well as the discourse relations holding between the shots and segments identified in the commercials. The findings show that the company mainly uses one specific type of rhetorical structure, the narrative commentary, that puts the social actors shown in many different scenes into the foreground and therefore strongly focuses on the company's strategy of positive social behavior

Framing identities using shelfies:Bridging private and professional spaces

This visual essay investigated how material objects frame and represent our self and identity, specifically focusing on curating different parts of identity through objects on bookshelves in online spaces. For the purpose of this study, a mixed method methodology was adopted where data was collected through semi-structured interviews and visual analysis (audio/video). There were six participants in this study who are academics from different higher education institutions with a wide range of research interests. The interviews were administered by the participants in pairs via an online platform and the video calls were recorded for data analysis purposes. The data analysis showed that shelfies reveal a specific place of our working environment in very concrete materiality, yet they also contain references to the invisible non-representational side of the social spaces that we interact with. It was clear from the findings that both parts of our identities (personal and professional) were portrayed in shelfies through the use of different materials and objects which were arranged in different styles