call for abstracts - panel on video in business communication - GABC - Global Advances in Business Communication, Antwerp 29-21 May 2013

Sun Dec 9 22:07:19 UTC 2012

Call for abstracts

Embedding video in online business communication.
The multimodal analysis of corporate video as an interactive and discursive process

Panel to be held in conjunction with GABC 2013 – Global Advances in Business Communication
University of Antwerp, 29-31 May 2013

Panel convenors: Paul Sambre and Geert Brône (University of Leuven, Belgium)

Topic
In the digital era of web 2.0, genre studies have focused increasingly on the emergence of new multimodal genres next to traditional, written ones. In this panel, we zoom in on web-based video communication as a particular discursive locus of interaction between discourse and technology, through combined modi as varied as text, speech, image, graphics, sound, music and other semiotic resources for setting up interpersonal and interdiscursive relations with social actors or voices within and outside the organization. The use of video in web-based communication raises questions about its status as a product, process and practice in integrated institutional organization, both corporate and public. The panel explicitly addresses a range of research questions pertaining to this multimodal development:

1.       Comparative analysis and genre classification of video and conventional or other web-based genres in corporate communication

2.       Methodological and theoretical challenges for a multimodal analysis of corporate videos as product, process and practice

3.       The analysis of interactional and interdiscursive relations in corporate video

a.       Interactional relations within the setting of the video

b.      Interdiscursive relations between a video file and other external semiotic resources

Research Background
The panel invites contributions that tie in with following lines of research in (applied) linguistics, pragmatics, discourse studies, communication research and (multimodal) corpus linguistics:

1.       Different authors have stressed the notion of genre change in a rapidly evolving technological world (Garzone, Catenaccio, Degano 2012), referring both to evolution of previously existing ones and the emergence of new hybrid genres (Garzone 2012, Djonov et al. 2013). The study of the status and change in video communication largely remains an open question.

2.       Digital media and web communication are interesting, as they frequently combine conventional written information with other semiotic modes in a flexible way: electronic media in this respect cross-fertilize with spoken media and visual information, like body posture, gesture and intonation (Levine and Scollon 2004). In web-based communication, the use of video interacts, on an interdiscursive level, with different conventional and new types of textual, graphical and communicative genres in web environments.

3.       Video is a locus of corporate identity, displaying and building relations between organizations. Internal or external stakeholders are displayed, articulated and co-constructed in videos: we are interested in the way video sets up this discourse community (Swales 1990, Kress and Van Leeuwen 2006), e.g. in a CEO’s mission statement or comment on the annual report.

4.       Video interactivity, conceived of as occurring within videos and between video and other media (like social ones), challenges linguistic and discursive views on interaction on different levels (McMillan 2006): as

a.       a face-to-face interactive process between participants in a video sequence (e.g. corporate video interview) (Thibault 2008, Heath et al. 2010),

b.      a channel connecting users synchronously (e.g. the use of Skype in videoconferencing) or asynchronously (e.g. video resumes, corporate address) (Tan 2010),

c.       the re-elaboration of corporate information by other video users in web-based communication like discussion fora, weblogs, instructional videos, social media and online helpdesks, to name but a few (Kress 2010: 45 and 121, Adami 2009, Bateman 2012, Bateman and Schmidt 2011).

5.       From a theoretical perspective, multimodal analysis is rooted primarily in systemic-functional grammar. Classification of video genres implies formulating answers concerning the macro- and micro-structural functions, moves and constructions used in video communication, and the added value of video in the media-mix (O’Halloran 2008, 2011).

6.       The multimodal character of corporate video, not only as a product, but also as a mediated process and creative practice of communication (Bhatia 2012) may open up interesting theoretical perspectives as to the complementarity between functional, cognitive, pragmatic and critical views on language, where language, communication and discourse appear as factors of (re)contextualization, adaptability and glocalization (Auer 2009, Bhatia, 2010, Verschueren 1999, Blommaert 2010, Fairclough 2009, Sambre 2012).

7.       Video-based analysis requires methodological reflection on the methods, techniques and tools for multimodal analysis (Jewitt 2011, Baldry and Thibault 2005), i.e. annotation (Bateman, Delin & Henschel 2004, Brône & Oben fc.), concordances (Baldry 2007, Baldry and Thibault 2008), protocols, questionnaires and peer-assessment (Van Leeuwen 1998, Morell et al. 2012), ethnographic work on video production and reception (Kress 2011), and other qualitative and quantitative methods used in the vast and multifaceted domain of visual studies and visual semiotics (O’Halloran 2004, Van Leeuwen 2011, Jewitt and Oyama 2001).

Practical information

-         - Abstracts: max. 500 words, to be submitted via the central conference submission system. All abstracts will be subjected to a double blind reviewing procedure by the ABC scientific committee and the panel convenors. For more details, see: http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=.GABC2013&n=110223

When submitting the abstract, please indicate the panel for which the abstract is intended (PANEL: VIDEO IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION)

-          - Submission deadline: 24 January 2013

-          - Notification of acceptance: 15 February 2013

-          - Practical questions? Please contact the panel convenors:

   Paul Sambre (paul.sambre at arts.kuleuven.be<mailto:paul.sambre at arts.kuleuven.be>)

   Geert Brône (geert.brone at arts.kuleuven.be<mailto:geert.brone at arts.kuleuven.be>)

References
Adami, E. 2009. ‘We/You Tube’: exploring sign-making in video-interaction. Visual Communication 8(4): 379-399.
Auer, P. 2009. Context and contextualization. In: Verschueren, J., Östman, J.-O. (eds.), Key Notions for Pragmatics, 86-101, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Baldry, A. 2007. The role of multimodal concordancers in multimodal corpus linguistics. In: Royce, T., Bowcher, W. (eds.), New Directions In The Analysis Of Multimodal Discourse, 173-93, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Baldry, A., Thibault, P. 2005. Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis. London: Equinox.
Baldry, A., Thibault, P. 2008. Applications of multimodal concordances. Hermes: Journal of Language and Communication Studies 41: 11-41.
Bateman, J. 2011. Multimodality and Genre. A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. London: Palgrave McMillan.
Bateman, J. 2012. Genre in the age of multimodality: some conceptual refinements for practical analysis. In: Evangelisti-Allori, P., Bhatia, V., Bateman, J., (eds.), Evolution in genre: emergence, variation, multimodality, Bern: Peter Lang.
Bateman, J, Schmidt, K.-H. 2011. Multimodal Film Analysis. How Film Means. London: Routledge.
Bateman, J., Delin, J., Henschel, R. 2004. Multimodality and empiricism. Preparing for a corpus-based approach to the study of multimodal meaning-making. In: Ventola, E., Cassidy, Ch., Kaltenbacher, M. (eds.), Perspectives on multimodality, 65-87, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Bhatia, V. 2010. Interdiscursivity in professional communication. Discourse & Communication 21(1): 32-50.
Bhatia, V. 2012. Creative exploitation of socio-pragmatic space in professional discourse. In: Jones, R. (ed.), Discourse and Creativity, 75-91, Harlow: Pearson.
Blommaert, J. 2010. The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brône, Geert, Oben, Bert. fc. InSight interaction: a multimodal and multifocal dialogue corpus. Language resources and evaluation.
Djonov, E., Knox, J., Zhao, S. 2013. Tools for the Critical Multimodal Analysis of Websites. London: Routledge.
Fairclough, Norman 2009. Language and Globalization. London/New York: Routledge.
Garzone, G. 2012. Why do genres change? In: Garzone, G., Catenaccio, P., Degano, Ch. (eds.), Genre Change in the Contemporary World. Short-term Diachronic Perspectives, 21-40, Bern: Peter Lang.
Heath, C., Hindmarsh, J., Luff, P. 2010. Video in qualitative research: analysing social interaction in everyday life. London: Sage.
Jewitt, C. 2011. The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge.
Jewitt, C., Oyama, R. 2001. Visual meaning : a social semiotic approach. In : Van Leeuwen, T. Jewitt, C. (eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis, 134-156, London: Sage.
Kress, G. 2010. Multimodality. A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. New York: Routledge.
Kress, Gunther. 2011. ‘Partnerships in research’: multimodality and ethnography. Qualitative Research 11: 239-260.
Kress, G., Van Leeuwen, Th. 2006. Reading Images. The grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge.
McMillan, S. 2006. Exploring models of interactivity from multiple research traditions: users, documents and systems. In: Lievrouw, L., Livingstone, S. (eds.), The Handbook of New Media, 205-229, London: Sage.
Levine, P., Scollon, R (eds.) Discourse & technology. Multimodal discourse analysis. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Morell, T., García, M., Sanchez, I. 2012. Multimodal strategies for effective academic presentations in English for non-native speakers. In: Proceedings of AESLA, 25 Years of Applied Linguistics in Spain: Milestones and Challenges. http://www.um.es/lacell/aesla/contenido/portada.html  [Retrieved 2 October 2012].
O’Halloran, K. 2004. Visual semiosis in film. In: O’Halloran, K (ed.), Multimodal discourse analysis: systemic functional perspectives. London and New York: Continuum, 109-113.
O'Halloran, K. 2008. Multimodal Analysis and Digital Technology In Baldry, A.,  Montagna, E. (eds.) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Multimodality: Theory and Practice. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Multimodality. Campobasso: Palladino.
O’Halloran, K. 2011. Multimodal discourse analysis. In: Hyland, K., Paltridge, B. (eds.) Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis, 120-137, London and New York: Continuum.
Sambre, P. 2012. Blurring boundaries of the EU (nano)future in Italian: cognitive grammar as discourse analysis. In Heynderickx, P., Dieltjens, S., Jacobs, G., Gillaerts, P., de Groot, E. (eds.). The language factor in international business: new perspectives on research, teaching and practice, 289-311, Bern: Peter Lang.
Swales, J. 1990. Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tan, S. 2010. Modelling engagement in a web-based advertising campaign. Visual Communication 0(1). 91-115.
Thibault, P. 2008. Face-to-face communication and body language. In: Antos, G., Ventola, E., Weber, T. (eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal  Communication, 285-330, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Van Leeuwen, Th. 1998. It was just like magic: a multimodal analysis of children’s writing. Linguistics and Education 10(3): 273-305.
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2011. Multimodality and multimodal research. In: Margolis, E., Pauwels, L. (eds.). The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, 549-569, London: Sage.
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GEERT BRÔNE
Docent Taalkunde en Discourse Studies

Lessius Antwerpen/ KU Leuven
Subfaculteit Taal & Communicatie
Sint-Andriesstraat 2 | 2000 Antwerpen | België
Tel. + 32 (0)3 206 04 91 & Fax  + 32 (0)3 206 04 99
geert.brone at arts.kuleuven.be
www.lessius.eu | wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/chil<http://www.lessius.eu/>

GEERT BRÔNE
Docent Taalkunde en Discourse Studies

Lessius Antwerpen/ KU Leuven
Subfaculteit Taal & Communicatie
Sint-Andriesstraat 2 | 2000 Antwerpen | België
Tel. + 32 (0)3 206 04 91 & Fax  + 32 (0)3 206 04 99
geert.brone at arts.kuleuven.be
www.lessius.eu | wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/chil<http://www.lessius.eu/>

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