How to draw an institution? Towards a structural analysis of visual and multimodal registers

In this manuscript, we develop a methodological approach towards the structural analysis of larger amounts of visual and multimodal data by conceptualizing more closely and systematically the workings of visual communication in the construction of meaning and the reproduction of institutions, as well as its interaction with verbal text. First, we briefly outline the conceptual basis for our methodological development. We introduce the concept of institutional registers in more detail and discuss pioneering research on visual registers before disentangling the visual mode from a social semiotic perspective and elaborating on textual metafunctions. At the core of our article, we develop an inventory of mechanisms realizing each metafunction visually and propose an operationalization of these mechanisms in the form of coding suggestions. We also touch upon ways in which such codes may be usefully integrated in the analysis of larger meaning structures. We illustrate selected aspects of our methodology with empirical data from the Austrian CSR discourse and conclude our article with an outline of its main contributions and promising directions for future research.