Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric in Media Genres

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.

Francesca Ervas, University of Cagliari and Elisabetta Gola, University of Cagliari, in International Review of Pragmatics 10 (2018) 309–320.:
[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.