Understanding the discursive construction of the body in a postmodern consumer culture : a multimodal critical discourse analysis

Abstract

A postmodern consumer culture is a visual culture in which representations of the body are ubiquitous. There are those that are constructed for commercial purposes, as well as those that are reproduced by consumers as an interpretative response. This form of response can be favourable meaning that consumers make visual representations that reproduce commercial discourses. It can also be opposing in the sense that consumers recreate visual representations that resist commercial discourses. In this project I deconstruct a selection of commercially produced and consumer reproduced visual representations using the method of multimodal critical discourses analysis (MCDA). My objective is to explore the semiotic choices made in the construction of these visual representations, the underlying discourses at play and the power relations that these discourses reflect. My analysis yields a better understanding of how commercially produced visual representations of the body are constructed through specific semiotic choices to communicate specific discourses that are sold, read and consumed by consumers who go on to reproduce their own visual interpretations. In postmodern consumer culture, this power dynamic is what frames the body in a never ending cycle of simulation that fuels the aestheticization of reality.