Abstract
This article explores how the selection of moving images in a corporate video contributes to the construction of an allegorical journey in an ideal spatio-temporal universe through which the corporate discourse communicates the company’s environmental commitment.
The article is based on a social semiotic analysis which explores the discourse of renewal and belonging articulated visually in the Closer to Nature environmental video of Arla Foods Company. This case study exemplifies a model of visual analysis which is based on the multifunctional dimensions of moving images and of their sequencing. The detailed analysis seeks to identify the main processes by which the visual environmental discourse secures a selective representation of time and space that highlights the company’s new green practices, and the closer link between consumers and nature through the company’s natural products.
This article thus suggests that fine-grained analyses of the meaning-making potential of images in environmental corporate discourses can facilitate a better understanding of visual selective strategies in contemporary environmental communication in general.
About the author
Carmen Daniela Maier PhD, is Associate Professor and member of the Knowledge Communication Research Group at the Institute of Business Communication, Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark. Among her latest publications are Knowledge Communication in Green corporate Marketing: A Multimodal analysis of an Ecomagination Video and Mediating multimodal environmental knowledge across animation techniques. Her current research focuses on the multimodal communication of specialized knowledge, corporate communication and on the analysis of environmental discourses.
© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
