Exploring Multimodal Registers in and Across Organizations and Institutional Fields: Sketching an Approach for Larger-Scale Multimodal Analysis

In this article, we develop methodology that enables a systematic analysis of the structuralaspects of multimodal discourse from larger amounts of data. While existing research in visualorganization studies has provided interesting insights into the content and meaning(s) of visualand multimodal communication, comparably little is known about how precisely multimodalcommunication establishes such meanings, suggests relationships between text producers,topics, and audiences, and interacts with the written word. Conceptually, we suggest the conceptof ‘visual register’ as a way of capturing the particular repertoires of expression that the visualoffers and argue that studying such registers substantially contributes to understanding thedistribution of meanings in and across organizations and institutional fields, but also acrosspoints in time. By drawing on the social semiotic concept of ‘metafunction’, we develop codingadvice that aims at facilitating the analysis of larger quantities of visual data while stillacknowledging the particular performativity of the visual mode. We illustrate our ideas withempirical data on the reporting of Austrian publicly traded corporations about Corporate SocialResponsibility (CSR), a complex and multivocal management idea that touches a variety oftopics and incorporates multiple levels of audience engagement with regard to a substantialdiversity of audiences.