Graphic Novel Adaptations of Young Adult Literature: Comparing Book Covers Through Multimodal Content Analysis

• In Event: Semiotics in Education: Signs, Meanings, and Multimodality SIG Paper Session

Abstract

Book covers are multimodal ensembles that convey messages through combinations of words, images, and design elements. Covers often integrate ideological components in order to appeal to and lure the reader into consuming the product. Readers should be alert to and challenge the preferred meanings (or ideologies) that visual texts produce. Drawing upon social semiotics and multimodality, a multimodal comparative content analysis was conducted to explore how twenty-one young adult novels and their graphic novel adaptations represented and positioned the texts, the stories, and the readers differently. Key findings constructed include: 1) novels are “more realistic” than graphic novels; 2) the audience for graphic novels is [considered] a different age than the YA novel audience; and 3) graphic novels required endorsements.

Authors

• Dani Kachorsky, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi

• Stephanie F. Reid, University of Montana - Missoula