ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to broaden the range of methodological approaches to multimodal communication by proposing an interdisciplinary approach for investigating strategies of multimodal crisis and risk communication in business and economic discourses of global news during the current pandemic era. The chapter is organised as follows. We begin with a review of central concepts and perspectives related to crisis and risk communication to set the background for our multimodal study. We move on to propose a qualitative analytical model that helps reveal the multimodal meaning creation strategies in crisis situations when risk informers, risk bearers, risk researchers and risk regulators enter the global news’ multivocal arena with multiple discursive agendas. We then empirically apply the model to global news videos released during spring 2020 by three international news channels, CNN, The Economist and Financial Times, aiming to explain the business and economic consequences of the pandemic outbreak. The findings show how global news media recontextualise multimodally social actors and social actions in their pandemic communication. They also confirm the value of integrating in multimodal discourse analysis the social dramaturgical approach belonging to risk communication research. We end the chapter with concluding reflections and suggestions for future research.
