Title: The Many Faces of Affect: A Multimodal Analysis of Boys Love (BL) Manga Covers
Stream: Other
Presentation Type: Virtual Presentation
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Abstract:
The unconventional complexity of Boys Love (BL) manga as a social practice in which women create and consume homoerotic fiction has been extensively discussed, with arguments mainly revolving around representation and fan culture. However, the multimodal potential of the covers has yet to be addressed despite being at the intermediary forefront between content and readers that are often rhetorically composed. This paper qualitatively investigates the discourse of BL on the covers at the intersection of its meaning-making facility from the perspective of multimodality in consideration of interdisciplinary remarks made on the genre. Drawing on an integrated social semiotic framework (van Leeuwen, 2008; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), four covers are multimodally examined to disclose visual and textual interplay with a focus on their strategic arrangement. This is done to demonstrate the characters’ significance over textual features as visual social actors to communicate meaning with the target audience which is reflected compositionally through strategies of placement, salience, and framing. By uncovering the deliberate deployment of appeal and affect within the cover’s limited space, this research offers alternative insights on BL from the semiotic choices made to frame trajectories realizing production interest while contributing to the consumption experience.
Virtual Presentation
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