Book Review: Sabine Tan and Marissa K. L. E (eds), Discourse, Modes, Media and Meaning in an Era of Pandemic: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach

Discourses on multi-modality have developed idiosyncratic interpretations of such terms as discourses, modes, media and semiotic resources. The volume approaches these terms from a more comprehensive perspective with a view on how these terms are employed in the coronavirus pandemic discourses in circulation as resources for communication and meaning making. The volume also offers a general view of how the pandemic was communicated, represented and (re-) contextualized across different spheres of professional and private lives by making use of a multi-modal discourse analysis approach.

Part I, entitled ‘Use of semiotic modes/resources in COVID-19 discourses’, focuses on how semiotic resources and discursive strategies are used to express meaning in static images about the COVID-19 pandemic, such as political cartoons (Chapter 2) and ‘graphic medicine’ comics (Chapter 3). In Chapter 2, Ahmed Abdel-Raheem identifies how speech act theory and multi-modal metaphor can be combined and extended to the study of multi-modal artefacts and behaviours. Traditionally, political cartoons were perceived in terms of negative comments to a large extent. However, the findings show that there are many positive reactions and behaviours in these cartoons (p. 5). In Chapter 3, Marissa K. L. E and Sabine Tan analyze a selection of short comics through a multi-modal social semiotic approach based on a metafunctionally organised framework. Under the framework, experiential meaning is concerned with how social actors and social actions are constructed, interpersonal meaning with the viewing positions and power relations, and textual meaning with the ways visual elements are arranged (Van Leeuwen, 2005). The findings reveal how the co-deployment of text and image, in combination with the utilisation of the narrative form (p. 62), helps to simplify complex concepts and attract audiences via humour and positive assessment.

Part II, entitled ‘Use of media/media technologies in COVID-19 discourses’, focuses on the affordances and appropriation of digital learning with semiotic technologies in educational contexts (Chapter 4) and the communicative effectiveness of public health information tweets (Chapter 5). In Chapter 4, Fei Victor Lim and Weimin Toh explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the value of semiotic technologies such as video lectures, digital games for learning and social media platforms in providing positive learning experiences for students. In Chapter 5, David Oakey, Christian Jones and Kay L. O’Halloran examine the phraseology and imagery in a corpus of UK public health agency tweets to understand how linguistic and visual resources combine to shape COVID-19 public health information messages (p. 90). The analysis of n-grams, fixed combinations of n words that occur repeatedly in a corpus (p. 92), showed that the most frequently used n-grams often served to give advice or instructions.

Part III, entitled ‘Communicative functions/strategies of COVID-19 discourses’, focuses on varied communicative functions and strategies employed in dynamic media discourses during the pandemic to inform and engage audiences on both a national and international level. In Chapter 6, Zuocheng Zhang, Toni Dobinson and Wei Wang examine how three Australian universities, which display high levels of pastoral care and cognitive cultivation for students, engaged international students by means of internet-based public communication channels to showcase their responsiveness to international students’ needs (p. 118). In Chapter 7, Carl Jon Way Ng explores how two leading airline companies employed multimodal strategies to leverage the themes of togetherness and solidarity in their social media brand communications. The findings affirm the observation that contemporary branding, to a great extent, is premised on affective messaging and management not merely as strategic rhetorical work, but also as enactments that help to shape brand personalities (p. 143). In Chapter 8, Yiqiong Zhang, Rongle Tan, Marissa K. L. E and Sabine Tan focus on how defamiliarisation, a technique of ‘making strange’, functions to compel the viewer to examine their automatic perceptions of that which is so familiar that it seems natural and so unquestionable (Bell et al., 2005: 151), is employed in a popular science video. The analysis reveals that defamiliarisation operated on textual, interpersonal and ideational levels of meaning. In Chapter 9, Yuanzheng Wu and Dezheng Feng analyse 232 news video clips to highlight the multiple functions social media news perform in engaging the public, such as sharing positive attitudes and emotions about the reported content, expounding pandemic-related knowledge and recommending appropriate protective measures. In Chapter 10, Carmen Daniela Maier and Silvia Ravazzani develop an analytical model for investigating multimodal crisis and risk communication in business and economic discourses in global news media and reveal the fundamental role played by risk-related roles such as risk informers, bearers, researchers and regulators (p. 201).

Part IV, entitled ‘Wider communicative meanings/purposes of COVID-19 discourses’, focuses on how COVID-19 discourses were reappropriated by the public as a means for delegitimising authoritative messages through the use of humour, and for co-creating semiotic knowledge through citizen participation. In Chapter 11, Avery Anapol illustrates how internet memes act a means for the government to highlight the public safety discourse, and for the public to express dissatisfaction with and confusion about the government’s strategy for combating uncertainty. Memes are an entertaining way to describe specific, but widely shared sentiments about an unprecedented, shared experience (Anapol, 2020). In Chapter 12, Elisabetta Adami and Emilia Djonov analyse a sample of exchanges on Facebook of the collaborative research initiative called Pandemic Meaning Making of Interaction and Communication to reveal how laypersons can act as socio-semioticians in creating, witnessing, describing, labelling, supporting or opposing, and legitimating and negotiating semiotic practices (p. 264).

In summary, this volume conducts a systemic analysis of the pandemic’s effects on communicative patterns, functions, strategies, technologies, meanings and purposes across political, economic and social dimensions, which are likely to be continued because of the possibility of the continuation of the pandemic. It provides readers with an opportunity to consider and prepare for issues involving multimodal communication that will likely arise in similar situations to come (p. 11). Despite these strengths, the volume has room for minor improvement. As far as research methods are concerned, this volume has confined itself to the case study of a country. It cannot be denied that this can be an important path for introducing how discourses, modes and media pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic affected daily lives of people in a certain country in terms of the various meanings they carry. However, adding a contrastive perspective by analysing discourses in different countries would have helped to reveal the similarities and differences of multimodal meaning building mechanisms in different regions, and the characteristics of the narrative mode and discourse strategy of the mainstream media of a country in reporting news about the coronavirus and the pandemic in other countries.

Overall, this volume provides an enlightening and innovative perspective for multimodal discourse research. The research is based on a linguistic-theory-motivated and interdisciplinary model, which can not only guide the innovation of multimodal discourse research, but also promote the coordinated development of humanities and social sciences and other sciences. It is highly recommended for any reader interested in the field of multimodal discourse analysis or other fields whose work focuses on the use of multimodal discourse for communication and meaning making.