Czytać warstwami! W stronę wielomodalnej analizy obrazowania w mediach .......... 83

READ IN LAYERS! A MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS OF THE MEDIA IMAGERY

In the world of interactive media, the covers of the printed press have extended their marketing, communicative, ideological and identification roles. There is a peculiar cover war raging in the media market. Illustrated magazines compete in covers, particularly when some sensational news appears or a controversial issue resurfaces to public attention. For a semiologist, a cover is a paradigmatic example of multimodal communication; it is, therefore, proper material for testing theories and perfecting analytical tools. This paper is devoted to the analysis of the communication strategies used on the covers, using the integrated, diversified semiotic resources, inter-textual implicatures, and narrative formulas. These strategies serve in steering the processes of perception, understanding and interpretation of covers. Depending on needs, they give saliency to referential, explicit, implicit, or symptomatic interpretations.