Interpersonal meanings in Internet news infographic on ivory poaching

Interpersonal meanings in Internet news infographic on ivory poaching Eric Cheung (13901602R)

Infographic: “Everything you need to know about ivory poaching” (published on 7 January 2014 from SCMP by Adolfo Arronz)

Retrieved from: http://www.scmp.com/infographics/article/1399263/everything-you-need-know-about-ivory-poaching

Infographics: significance

• Portmanteau of information and graphics• “An informational contribution… done with

iconic and typographical elements” (Sancho, as cited in Giardina and Medina, 2012, p.246)

• “Infographics are getting widespread in the Internet media” (Dur, 2014, p.137)

• Evolving infographics to allow interactivity – adding values to journalistic media

Major research on infographics

• Quantitative– Content analysis (Giardina and Medina, 2012)– Distribution of infographic types (Ghode, 2012;

Jacobson, 2012)• Experimental and cognitive– Navigation path (Holsanova, 2005)– Automatic recognition (Huang and Tan, 2007)

Research Gap

• Understanding infographics is a “discourse-level problem” (Carberry et al., 2003)

• Necessitate investigation of how visual-verbal text complexes are socially constructed– With the use of a variety of semiotic resources– Visual: image, diagram, vectors, colour, fonts– Verbal: textual structure, texture, word choice

• Social semiotics of infographics in the new media

Systemic-functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA)

• SF-MDA: the promising potential of analysing the dynamics of the semiotic resources in the infographics construing meaning

• Theorising how different semiotic resources interact to construe meaning with the principles of metafunctions– ideational/representational (construing reality) – interpersonal (enacting social relations) – textual/organisational (organising discourse)

Research questions and approaches• How is the information structured to maintain a

consistent meaning throughout the text?– Information value, salience and framing(Kress and van

Leeuwen, 2006)

• How are the interpersonal meanings construed in the visual-verbal text?– Verbal APPRAISAL (Martin and White, 2005)– Visual APPRAISAL (Bednerak and Caple, 2012; Economou,

2009; Swain, 2012)

• Close discourse analysis– Annotating the infographic data– Interpreting the statistical findings

Interpersonal meanings explicated• APPRAISAL (Martin and White)– ATTITUDE (explicit emotion and valuation)

• Affect (expressing emotions – e.g. happy, secure)• Judgement (valuating people – e.g. honest, capable)• Appreciation (valuation things – e.g. quality, composition)

– ENGAGEMENT (single or multiple, alternative voices)• Contract (highlighting authorial presence – e.g. deny)• Expand (suggesting possibilities and alternatives)

– GRADUATION (degree of intensity/quantity)• Focus• Force

Economou’s (2009) visual graduation

• Force– Quantification• Number• Mass• Extent (proximity,

distribution)– Intensification• Brightness• Vividness– Repetition (of similar,

countable items)

• Focus– Specification• Clarity• Substantiation• Completion

• Graduation values– High– Median– Low

Evaluative key (or voice)

• Evaluation distribution with a particular type of text (or register)– The evaluation within a single text is stance– Voice in journalistic discourse (White, 1998, 2006)• Reporter voice (personal judgement absent; judgement

attributed)• Correspondent voice (judgement confined to “esteem”)• Commentator voice (use of judgement values liberally)

– Voice in political cartoon (Swain, 2012)• Observer, jester, indictor voices

Genre and macrogenres

• “Genre” is the abstract level of how a text is organised to reach social goals in stages (Martin, 1984)– Engage (storytelling); inform (report); evaluate

(critique)• “Macrogenres”: Texts are often comprised of

multiple “microgenres” (Martin and Rose, 2007, p.218)– Achieving multiple social purposes– Elements composited according to information values

(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, p.177)

Composition of visual texts

• Relates the representational and interactive meanings of the image to each other through (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, p.177):– Information value (zone of the image placed)– Salience (point of attraction in the image text)– Framing (connection of elements in the image)

Data of the present study• Global genre: news story

Purpose: to narrate (lead story 1st)• Prominent placement of

Information valueIdeal-Real: overarching info at the

top; practical info at the bottomCentre-margin: elements arranged

around the elephant head and the tusk

Major micro-genresHistorical recount (figures, tables)Sequential explanations (“Tusk

extraction)Compositional report (“Up close”)Descriptive report (ivory as luxury

goods)

Potential navigation path•The direction of the tusk is a vector suggesting the reading path

•From the root of the tusk to the tip•Justified by the textual cohesion

•25% of the tusk is inside…•… as it contains 25% of the tusk

•Elements of lower salience at the marginal areas may attract less attention

•The elephant’s forehead and the two types of elephants beside the forehead•The tusks are the centre of focus

•Each element (unit) has a more miniscule, subtle reading path (left to right, top to bottom)

Visual-verbal APPRAISAL

Sub-types +ve (verbal) -ve (verbal) +ve (visual) -ve (visual)Capability 1 0 0 0Normality 0 3 0 5Propriety 4 9 0 3

5 12 0 8

Sub-types +ve (verbal) -ve (verbal) +ve (visual) -ve (visual)Impact 0 1 0 0Quality 1 0 2 0Valuation 2 1 0 0

3 2 2 0

Judgement

Appreciation

Verbal APPRAISAL

• Attitude– Ivory has played an important role [+appreciation]– Poachers [-judgement] need to cut off a big portion of the

elephant's head [-judgement] • Engagement– But [contract: disclaim: counter] to no [contract: disclaim:

deny] avail

• Graduation– reverse a rapid [graduation: force] decline in the

population of African elephants

Visual-verbal APPRAISAL

Graduation

Sub-types Verbal VisualForce 7 13Focus 1 11

8 24

Sub-types Verbal VisualCounter 4 0Deny 1 0Pronounce 1 0

6 0

Engagement: contraction

Visual APPRAISAL

High salience (graduation: quantification: mass)

Mid salience (graduation: specification: vividness)

Low salience (graduation: specification: low clarity/vividness)

APPRAISAL synergy creating overall stance

• Attitudinal evaluation is mainly in verbal text– “Lead” of the verbal texts and attitudinal meaning

– the major body text (larger font, next to headline, attitude-dense)

• Visual elements provide graduation to up-scale the poachers’ cruelty and immorality– “Lead” of the visual texts – the elephant head with

the tusks (centre, high salience)

Summary of the study

• Objective images (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006) are embedded with author’s values

• Spreading of interpersonal meanings– From the main text (at the Ideal position)– From the salient illustration of elephant head (at the

centre position)– Determining the overall stance of other elements

• The overall voice of the infographic is “commentator” voice (White, 1998)– Numerous judgement of social esteems and sanctions

Implications and future studies• Visual and information literacy– Clarity, consistency, precision and aesthetics

(Duenes, 2008; Sancho, 2001)– Criticality (understanding of ethical and moral social

values) and ability to express it verbally and visually• Future studies– Generalising the micro-genres in infographics for

empirical analyses– Schematic structure of infographics– Comparing visual-verbal interpersonal meaning

patterning in infographics within the same field