Visual Construction of Mainstream Media’s Fusion Columns under the Perspective of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Abstract

In the era of profound media integration, mainstream media has continually innovated while upholding its foundational values and ideology. Leaders Talk, a hallmark of Chinese mainstream “Headline Project”, exemplifies this innovation and embodies the development strategy to “Fill every screen with quality programs”. This program leverages multimodal discourse to enhance visual construction, fostering a unique story dissemination field that aligns with mainstream aesthetics, thereby creating an equitable and approachable media image with significant international influence. Through the lens of multimodal discourse analysis, and by integrating systemic functional linguistics with a multimodal interaction framework, we can dissect the visual construction methods employed in Leaders Talk. This analysis not only elucidates the new communication pathways for mainstream media columns in the context of media integration and multimodality, but also offers novel solutions to elevate the positive value aesthetics of mainstream media. Furthermore, it provides a fresh perspective on enhancing positive value aesthetics and fortifies the theoretical underpinnings of multimodal discourse analysis within visual culture.