Multimodal Analysis in Qualitative Research: Extending Grounded Theory Through the Lens of Social Semiotics

Abstract

Digital technology has made it easier for researchers to conduct and produce multimodal data. In terms of a social semiotic understanding, multimodal means that data are produced from different sign resources, such as field protocols combined with visual recordings or document analysis consisting of audiovisual material. The increase in multimodal data brings the challenge of developing analytical tools not only to collect data but also to examine them. In this article, I introduce a research approach for how to integrate multimodal data within the framework of grounded theory by extending the coding process with a social semiotic understanding of data as a combination of different sign modes. This approach makes it possible not only to analyze data based on different modes separately but also to analyze their combination, for example, the interweaving of text and image.