Re-presentando el poder

Una lectura multimodal de algunos medios electrónicos

Abstract

In a pioneering 1998 article, Kress y Van Leeuwen propose an analysis of newspaper front pages in terms of the composition of their visual space, and demonstrate the importance of a multimodal approach for the appreciation of the combination of visual and verbal elements in the journalistic message. Our objective in this paper is to examinethe design of visual spaces in public internet sites in terms of their expression of power. From the perspective of social semiotics, any visual space designed for public or institutional purposes is a space where power is expressed, and it may be (re-)interpreted as such. We are interested first and foremost in recent situations of conflict (during 2003) as represented in internet news (press), governmental and military websites. Our analysis includes the following aspects: forms of power, (some) readings of power, the move from reader to user in the electronic media, and multimodality and hypermodality. We comment on Latin-American and worldwide examples taken from both Spanish and English-language websites.