Dynamic Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Obama’s TV Campaign Advertisements

Since its advent to date, the majority of research endeavors in multimodal discourseanalysis (MDA) have concentrated on visual image, which seems that there is fewinvertigation of dynamic image, especially of the interactions and cooperations of multiplesemiotic modes in meaning-making in dynamic multimodal discourse. Moreover, with moststudies focusing on business advertisement and public service advertisement, the analysis ofpolitical advertisement is inadequately touched upon. Hence, this thesis chooses Obama’s TVcampaign advertisements as the analyzing objects, and tries to explore how the multiplesemiotic modes interact and cooperate with each other in meaning-making in dynamicmultimodal discourse.In light of these conditions, this paper, from the systemic functional perspective, tries toenrich Lim(2004)’s Integrative Multi-Semiotic Model (IMM) based on visual grammar,systemic functional grammar, visual semantics stratum and by drawing upon Kay L.O’Halloran (2004a)’s and Thibault&Baldry (2000,2004)’s multimodal transcriptionframeworks. And this improved framework is used to analyze the meaning-making ofObama’s TV advertisements by adopting primarily a qualitative approach with the help of adescriptive research method. On the Expression Plane of this impoved model, this paperproposes a transcription framework which takes “phase” consisting of “frames” as the basicunit of analysis, and on the basis of this, this paper, from the aspects of ideational,interpersonal and textual meanings, tries to analyze the multiple semiotic modes’(image,language) funcions and cooperations in meaning-making in dynamic Obama’s TVadvertisements on the Content Plane, and at last, the ideologies implied in Obama’s TVadvertisements are discussed on the Context Plane. The analysis results indicate that in orderto enhance the persuasive power, Obama’s TV advertisements are produced to apply thecombination and shift of multiple semiotic modes to ceating Obama’s ideal image, andspreading his political ideas. As for meaning-making in dynamic multimodal discourse, theinteraction between the multiple semiotic modes, especially the verbal resource system andthe visual resource system, is not a simple relation of consonance or dissonance, or the relation of primary and secondary. In order to give prominence to centain themes, the resourcesystems in the two kinds of modalities interact with each other in a complicatedcomplementary way to reinforce the same aspect from different perspectives or interact in acontradictory way.Through the specific analysis of Obama’s TV campaign advertisements, it is proved thatthe improved model in this paper has a stronger explanatory power in multimodal discourseanalysis, and is much practical in investigating how the meanings arise from the multiplesemiotic modes in dynamic multimodal discourses. Therefore, this paer has a reference valuefor the future analysis and research of multimodal discourse.