Multimodality and Aesthetics

This volume explores the relationship between aesthetics and traditional multimodal communication to show how all semiotic resources, not just those situated within fine arts, have an aesthetic function. Bringing together contributions from an interdisciplinary group of researchers, the book meditates on the role of aesthetics in a broader range of semiotic resources, including urban spaces, blogs, digital scrapbooks, children's literature, music, and online learning environments. The result is a comprehensive collection of new perspectives on how communication and aesthetics enrich and complement one another when meaning is made with semiotic resources, making this key reading for students and scholars in multimodality, fine arts, education studies, and visual culture.

Elise Seip Tønnessen is Professor in the Department of Nordic and Media Studies at the University of Agder, Norway. Frida Forsgren is Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Translation Studies at the University of Agder, Norway.

1. Introduction Elise Seip Tønnessen and Frida Forsgren Part I. 2. Multimodality, style and the aesthetic: the case of the digital werewolf Andrew Burn and Gunther Kress 3. A phenomenological approach to multimodality and aesthetic experiences Thomas Illum Hansen Part III. 4. Memoria of a national trauma Eva Maagerø and Aslaug Veum 5. Reconstruction of Chilean memories in the national stadium of Chile: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a centre of detention and torture Patricia Baeza Duffy 6. Shaping the social through the Aesthetics of public places: the renovation of Leeds Kirkgate Market Elisabetta Adami Part III. 7. A multimodal analysis of aesthetics in Brazilian school textbooks Clarice Lage Gualberto and Sônia Maria de Oliveira Pimenta 8. Aesthetic experience through students' production of digital books Hege Emma Rimmereide, Jon Hoem and Sarah Hoem Iversen 9. Digital Argumentation Aesthetics Jon Hoem and Ture Schwebs 10. Visualizing norms of science in early school years: visual aesthetics and content formation in students' multimodal compositions Elin Westlund 11. The aesthetic potential of vocal sound in online learning situations Johnny Wingstedt Part IV. 12. The templatized aesthetics of Wix: a social semiotic technology approach to web design Gunhild Kvåle & Søren Vigild Poulsen 13. Digital Scrapbooks, everyday aesthetics and the curatorial self: social photography in female visual blogging Sumin Zhao and Michele Zappavigna 14. Multimodality, moving images and aesthetics Øystein Gilje 15. Filtered aesthetics: a study of Instagram's photo filters from the perspective of semiotic technology Søren Vigild Poulsen Part V. 16. Sensory experience and a subjective reading position in The Lost Thing Kristin Ørjasæter 17. Tears in heaven: Eric Clapton coping with loss through music and words Bjarne Markussen 18. Multimodal aesthetics and gender in Beck's Song Reader Kate Maxwell and Lilli Mittner 19. Intermodal contrast in film: looking for the aesthetics of intermodal relations Martin Siefkes