Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric in Media Genres: (14 Argumentation in Context)

This collection advances the study of context-dependent characteristics of argumentative discourse by examining a variety of media genres in which text and image (and other semiotic modes) combine to create meaning. The chapters have been written by an international group of senior and junior scholars researching multimodal argumentation in the last two decades. In each chapter, a specific approach to argumentation and rhetoric is combined with insights from visual studies, metaphor theory, scientific visualization, cognitive science, semiotics, conversation analysis, or (documentary) film theory in order to explain how multimodal genres function argumentatively and rhetorically. Together the chapters present a state-of-the-art in the analysis of multimodal argumentation in such diverse genres as print advertisements, news photographs, scientific illustrations, political cartoons, documentaries, film trailers, political TV advertisements, public debates, and political speeches. The volume will be of interest to advanced students and scholars in argumentation studies, rhetoric, and multimodal communication.

Review :
[T]he book definitely achieves the aim of presenting both an overview of different theoretical proposals at stake in multimodal argumentation and the application of such proposals to specific domains of multimodal discourse. Tseronis and Forceville have edited a rich collection focusing on multimodal arguments that combine visual and verbal appeals, now the norm in our media-rich world. The ten contributions from scholars in argumentation, linguistics and rhetoric offer case studies in a variety of genres including advertisements, press photographs, editorial cartoons, documentary films, movie trailers, political ads, scientific diagrams and even physical gestures and bearing. Each chapter also examines the theoretical issues informing its analytical approach, while all emphasize the interactivity rather than the isolation of the different modes. Rounding out this valuable collection, the editors' introduction provides a valuable overview of scholarship on multimodal arguments and suggests promising directions for further research. The editors deliver a multi-faceted enquiry into the rhetorical workings of multimodal argumentation; this is very serious inter-disciplinary scholarship on an exciting new topic. The volume comes as a convincing synthesis of two underexposed strands of linguistic and multimodal media studies. It fuses erudite theory-building with insightful empirical analysis. All its chapters provide in-depth exploration of the structures, contexts, communicative impact and ethical dimensions of multimodal arguments. The cogent and succinct volume covers a wide variety of media and genres as well as an impressive range of semiotic modes. Ultimately, this book successfully responds to calls for research of multimodal media that valorizes the argumentative nature of modes other than the previously dominant verbal mode. The book’s broad purview makes it an attractive resource to scholars of varying disciplines who wish to evaluate the claims of a given media genre. As stated by editors Tseronis and Forceville in the introduction, there is space for future research to continue to collect corpora of multimodal media and apply or transform the approaches in the book to their analyses. Given the diversity of approaches and topics shown in the ten chapters of this volume, it seems clear that Tseronis and Forceville have successfully exhibited the wide range of topics and approaches that can be distinguished in the study of multimodal argumentation and rhetoric. The collection confirms that the combination of multimodal argumentation and rhetoric constitutes a promising topic of research, which deserves in our view more attention. The collection also makes clear that the development of this field will unavoidably be full of doubts and controversies.