Individual and Collaborative Semiotic Work in Document Design
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/hjlcb.v0i55.24288Keywords:
multimodality, document design, corporate communications, annual reports, agency, transduction, transformationAbstract
This article examines the concepts of agency, transformation and transduction in the context of document design. These concepts have been previously used to describe communicative actions and sign-making among individuals: whereas agency focuses on the individual’s capabilities as a sign-maker, transformation and transduction describe how individuals transform meanings within one mode of communication or from one mode to another. Organizational communication, however, is rarely an individual effort, particularly in corporate settings: producing multimodal documents that communicate on behalf of entire organizations, such as annual reports, constitutes a collaborative effort involving a variety of specialists, such as concept planners, copywriters and graphic designers.
In the age of increasing specialization, this kind of collaborative semiotic work raises questions about agency, transduction and transformation. In this context, the concepts of agency and transmodality, which emphasize the individual, appear to have reduced explanatory power. This leads to the central question of this article, that is, how can the collaborative design process be captured and how does it affect the multimodal structure of annual reports? By analyzing an annual report published by Finnair and interviewing its designers, this article aims to illuminate the design process and its consequences to the document in question.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).