Investigating ideology, manipulation and text interpretation in documentary films

Presenter: Dr Jacopo Castaldi

Date and time: 27 June 12-1.30 pm (London time)

Place: Zoom (link will show on screen upon registration)

Please register via: https://forms.office.com/e/0ntCmvtXaZ

Abstract

The paper will start by introducing the research project behind my recent monograph, entitled Multimodality, Ideology, and Manipulation (Castaldi, 2025). The study integrates audience research (e.g., Schrøder et al., 2003) and multimodal critical discourse analysis (e.g., Machin & Mayr, 2012) to investigate “how individuals discursively constitute themselves” (Castaldi, 2021, p. 56). The approach takes a narrow reading of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, where ideological dissemination is seen as the work of civil society, rather than political society, and therefore focuses on the mass-mediated genre of travel and cultural documentaries.

The research assumes that multimodal semiosis is infused with ideologies, as the choice of signs is always motivated (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2020, p. 10). The approach, however, acknowledges the agentive position of the individual in ideology formation and, through the analysis of three case studies, aims to shed some light on the whole process of mass-mediated communication, from production to reception, with a focus on manipulative processes.

The paper will conclude with a discussion around the challenges of investigating the reception of multimodal texts. Here we will take stock of what research using different approaches to reception studies has shown to date, and we will consider possible trajectories for future research.

References

Castaldi, J. (2021). A multimodal analysis of the representation of the Rohingya crisis in BBC’s Burma with Simon Reeve (2018): Integrating Audience Research in Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies. Multimodal Communication, 10(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1515/mc-2020-0014

Castaldi, J. (2025). Multimodality, Ideology and Manipulation: BBC Travel Documentaries and the Illusion of Empire. Routledge.

Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2020). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis. Sage.

Schrøder, K. C., Drotner, K., Kline, S., & Murray, C. (2003). Researching Audiences. Arnold.

Bio

Dr Jacopo Castaldi is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Linguistics at Canterbury Christ Church University. His main research interests are critical discourse studies, multimodality, mass-mediated communication, and the semiotic and cognitive aspects of manipulation, with a focus on the interactive experiences of audiences and on meaning interpretation. He is a member of the executive committee of the international network CADAAD (Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines), and he is on the advisory board of the 12th International Conference on Multimodality (12ICOM).

His work has been published in international journals, and his first monograph, Multimodality, Ideology and Manipulation, has been published in the Routledge Studies in Multimodality series in 2025. Moreover, he has guest edited a special issue on ‘Multimodality and Reception Studies’ which will be published in the summer 2025 in the journal Visual Communication (Sage).

His current project is on the representation of Ukrainian displaced people on British television, and he is guest editing, with Dr Ewa Konieczna, a special issue on ‘Approaching Manipulation and Persuasion in Current Discourses’ for the journal Pragmatics and Society (John Benjamins).