Henriksen, Berit Engøy;
(2020)
A Multimodal Approach to Researching Social Media Practices: A Case Study of Style Materialised in Online Texts.
Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Social media users combine semiotic resources like writing, speech, still image, moving image, layout and colour when communicating online. The complex nature and forms of social media use have clear correspondences with the concerns of multimodal theory - a social semiotic theory which looks beyond speech and writing to focus on the multiple modes of meaning making and communication that constitute contemporary life. This thesis aims to explore the potentials and limitations of researching social media interaction with a multimodal approach, with a focus on how users’ textmaking choices create social media styles that express their individual and social interests. The empirical work is carried out by a multimodal social semiotic microanalysis of digital content. In particular, the thesis examines multimodal text-making practices of users from three different social media platforms – Pinterest, Twitter and Tumblr. By accounting for resources of image, colour and layout in addition to language, this thesis attempts to respond to some of the challenges of social media research, in that it pays attention to all modes of communication appropriated by social media users. This study finds, that through nuances in style work, from linguistic resources of pronouns and modal verbs, to image resources of content placement and colour palettes, social media users not only present themselves to the online community, displaying their interests, values and beliefs. Users also highlight their intended audience and their membership in online communities through their multimodal compositions. As such, the thesis contributes to our understanding of self-presentation and audience management online, highlighting the importance of accounting for the multimodal character of social media use
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil |
| Title: | A Multimodal Approach to Researching Social Media Practices: A Case Study of Style Materialised in Online Texts |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10098224 |
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