Image Analysis Unswmdia3002
News has changed from a text dominant platform to a multimodal news discourse, which now is inclusive of visual tracks. The move towards multi-semiotic news platforms has changed the nature of news and how news happenings are presented to readers. Moya (2011, p. 2983) states, “Images and language have their own specific potentials, that is, their own affordances to make meaning. It is apparent that contemporary news discourse is constructed through image composition and the placement of news values. This essay analyses to the construction of the visual and verbal tracks and how this helps create meaning about a news event to audiences. Therefore this essay proposes that image-text cohesion in news articles provides meaning about news happenings through ‘newsworthy’ elements. Bednarek and Caple’s (2012) ‘News Discourse’ provides the principal frameworks for this essay and how news happenings are presented across images in the ‘Balance framework’ (p.160-180), ‘Text-image relations in news discourse’ (p.120-136) and ‘Construing news values in discourse’ (p.39-83). Their frameworks are used alongside Moya, Meinhof, Marissa and Wilkinson to form this essay’s argument about image-text unity. The images addressed are from ‘Health and Wellbeing’ articles that can be analysed to show a relationship between verbal and visual content in contemporary publishing.
In terms of image and text relationships Moya proposes, “verbal and visual modalities are studied and contrasted as separate texts which function independently of each other” (2011, p. 2983). However it is proposed that a multimodal approach should be taken to understand meaning provided to readers given from a verbal-visual cohesion. Similarly Marissa suggests that in order to comprehend meaning multi-semiotic resources should be researched (2011, p. 579). In regards to images, Caple argues that the change to image dominance provokes the need to see image composition in articles as complimentary to verbal
In terms of image and text relationships Moya proposes, “verbal and visual modalities are studied and contrasted as separate texts which function independently of each other” (2011, p. 2983). However it is proposed that a multimodal approach should be taken to understand meaning provided to readers given from a verbal-visual cohesion. Similarly Marissa suggests that in order to comprehend meaning multi-semiotic resources should be researched (2011, p. 579). In regards to images, Caple argues that the change to image dominance provokes the need to see image composition in articles as complimentary to verbal
References: Moya, G, Arsenio, J 2011, ‘Engaging readers through language and pictures. A case study’, Journal of Pragmatics Vol. 43 no. 12, pp. 2982-2991 Roy Morgan Research, June-August 2012, The Daily Telegraph Newsspace, accessed March 12th