Triangulating transmediality: A multimodal semiotic framework relating media, modes and genres. (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bateman, John A.
• Is Part Of: Discourse, context & media. Volume 20(2017)
• Page Start: 160
• Page End: 174
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: Communicative medium -- Semiotic modes -- Transmediality -- Intermediality -- Multimodality; Discourse analysis -- Periodicals; Digital media -- Periodicals; Mass media and language -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; Communication; Digital media; Discourse analysis; Mass media and language; Periodicals; 401.4105
• DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2017.06.009
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2211-6958

Abstract

Abstract: A prerequisite for approaching the study of changes across media and their evolving roles in society, especially when 'new' media emerge, is that one has a good theoretical grasp of just what 'media' are and how they may be approached analytically. To support insightful analysis going beyond description and cataloguing, there is a need to make current notions far more precise. In this paper, I evaluate some of the more developed proposals made for characterizing relations between media to date and argue that a more explicit and refined semiotic foundation has much to offer. Only with such a foundation can sufficiently fine-grained theoretical and methodological tools be constructed capable of tracking both media evolution and media interrelationships in detail. The paper concludes that the incorporation of a particular definition of semiotic modes in the context of multimodality allows more discriminating characterizations of 'media' and 'mediality' in general.