Redefining multimedia: The (dis)integrated use of multiple media and modalities in convergent journalism

The combination and integration of multiple presentation formats like text, video, pictures and sounds is defined as multimedia. Together with other buzzwords like interactivity and hypertext, multimedia is one of the most studied online features in contemporary journalism studies. However, the concept of multimedia is too ambiguous to analyze contemporary journalism in an adequate manner. In this paper, we discuss the current definitions of multimedia and propose that multimodality, a concept used in linguistics and semiotics, better describes the integrated use of different forms of presentation. We make a distinction between the two concepts and demonstrate the complexity of online news realities where multiple modalities and multiple media are integrated or disintegrated. Based on a multimodal and multimedia analysis of an online news story, we illustrate the differences between modalities and media. We incite to take this difference into account when doing further research on online news.status: publishe