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In this editorial for a double volume on “Multimodality, Meaning, and Institutions” in Research in the Sociology of Organizations, we aim to achieve three objectives: first, we provide a set of guiding ideas about what a multimodal prism entails for the study of meaning and institutions; second, we give an overview of the topics, concepts, and methods covered in this volume and briefly introduce the central contributions and insights of each article; third, we outline a number of open questions and fruitful avenues for a future research agenda at the intersection of organization studies, institutional theory, and multimodality research.

This paper aims to explore recent research (2007-2017) on the implementation of multimodal writing instruction in secondary English courses. It seeks to highlight the varied ways in which theoretical conceptions of multimodality have been implemented in writing instruction and the impacts of these implementations on students' experiences in classrooms.

The author used a keyword search of relevant academic databases to identity articles within the search parameters. This was followed by bibliographic branching to identify additional articles and two rounds of open coding to identify themes for analysis.

The literature revealed a diversity of approaches to incorporating multimodal writing in classrooms; teachers mixed modalities within assignments, paired writing in print with multimodal composition and redesigned entire units or courses around multimodality. Studies showed the impact of multimodality on student learning through shifts in conceptions of communication, increases in student engagement, composition for real audiences and an increased role for students’ interests and identities.

This review has implications for teachers and researchers interested in developing multimodal writing curricula. It highlights the specific ways in which multimodal writing can be incorporated into instruction and the changes in student learning that result from this shift.

While theoretical writing on multimodality is abundant, multiple researchers have noted the difficulty of finding research on classroom implementations of multimodality (Howell et al., 2017; Smith, 2017). This review is intended to address this difficulty by contributing to a body of literature that teachers and scholars can draw on as they conceptualize and design multimodal writing experiences for students in the future.

While recent theoretical discussions around discourse–material relationality have facilitated important conceptual and analytical advancements within the broader field of CMS, less progress has been made methodologically with regard to innovating empirical methods and data modes. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to contribute to strengthening the methodological focus in the literature when grappling with the relationality of discourse–materiality and co-constitution. This includes a method-retooling framework inspired by new materialism.

In this article, the authors engage at the methodological level by developing a method-retooling framework that combines insights from organizational discourse studies and new materialist thinking. This framework enables a retooling of existing methods to become sensitive to multimodality and offers two concrete examples that were developed during fieldwork for a multi-sited and multi-method case study in 2018.

Based on the framework for retooling methods for multimodality, two illustrations are offered. These include retooling interviews by employing multimodal vignettes and retooling observations by using multimodal mappings. They are unfolded and discussed regarding their appropriation of discourse–material relationality.

This paper includes original research and method developments – adding a critical focus on the methodological aspects and potential advancements that are necessary in the wake of the ongoing debates around discourse–materiality across CMS and specifically within studies of organizational discourse and CCO. By suggesting a framework, the authors stimulate methodological explorations and contribute to furthering method developments that are equal to the rich conceptual progress made within the field.

This research studies a plastic recycling system from a reverse logistics angle and investigates the potential benefits of a multimodality strategy to the network design of plastic recycling. This research aims to quantify the impact of multimodality on the network, to provide decision support for the design of more sustainable plastic recycling networks in the future.

A MILP model is developed to assess different plastic waste collection, treatment and transportation scenarios. Comprehensive costs of the network are considered, including emission costs. A baseline scenario represents the optimized current situation while other scenarios allow multimodality options (barge and train) to be applied.

Results show that transportation cost contributes to about 7 percent of the total cost and multimodality can bring a reduction of almost 20 percent in transportation costs (CO₂‐eq emissions included). In our illustrative case with two plastic separation methods, the post‐separation channel benefits more from a multimodality strategy than the source‐separation channel. This relates to the locations and availability of intermediate facilities and the quantity of waste transported on each route.

This study applies a reverse logistics network model to design a plastic recycling network with special structures and incorporates a multimodality strategy to improve sustainability. Emission costs (carbon emission equivalents times carbon tax) are added to the total cost of the network to be optimized.

A multimodal perspective highlights the importance of attending to the different modes, mostly verbal and visual, which organizations use when conveying messages. We complement this perspective by adding an additional layer, namely the medium through which messages appear. We suggest that organizations can fine-tune messages not only by playing with possible interactions across modes, but also across media. We build our reasoning around the communication of identity claims. Specifically, we are interested in how identity elements are referenced in verbal and visual modes of meaning making, and how these modes interrelate both with one another and with the respective channels of communication on which they appear. We propose that organizations differentially select identity elements across diverse media and draw on specific identity elements modally in their quest for legitimate distinctiveness. We propose three ways in which multimodal identity claims interact: intensifying, in which messages draw from the same theme to reinforce claims; complementing, in which messages complement each other to enhance meaning; and transposing, in which a dominant theme in one message is transposed into another theme elsewhere. We provide an illustration with identity claims made by single-malt Scotch whisky distilleries.

This afterword reviews the chapters in this volume and reflects on the synergies between organization and management studies and multimodality studies that emerge from the volume. These include the combination of strong sociological theorizing and detailed multimodal analysis, a focus on materiality and on the way functionality and meaning combine in multimodal communication, and an interest in the historical transformations of identity and legitimation discourses.

To present the instructional activities of an intervention enacted in two formative experiment studies. The goal of these studies was to improve students’ argumentative writing, both conventional and digital, multimodal.

This chapter provides the instructional steps taken by high-school teachers as they integrated multimodal argument projects into their classroom, describing the planning and instructional activities needed to teach students both the elements of argument and the practice of digital, multimodal design.

The author discusses the practical pedagogical steps and considerations needed to have students create digital, multimodal arguments in the form of infographics and public service announcements. Students were engaged in the creation of these arguments; however, practical considerations are discussed for both task complexity and the merger between digital and conventional writing.

Research suggests that integrating digital tools and multimodality into classrooms may be needed and valued, but practical suggestions for this integration are lacking. This chapter provides the needed pedagogical application of digital tools and multimodality to academic instruction.

Changes in digital communication technologies have impacted on society so rapidly that educational researchers, policy makers and teachers are challenged by the application of these changes for curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment. The multimedia facilities of digital technologies, particularly mobile hand held devices and touch pads, encourage the processing of several modes simultaneously. Thus the traditional concept of literacy as reading and writing has changed as these rarely occur in isolation within digital communication. Many students are engaged in more sophisticated use of technologies outside school than they experience at school. Moreover, participation in gaming and social networking has created significant social and cultural change.

At the same time there have been many initiatives in classrooms to adapt to the learning potential of new technologies with schools introducing laptops, iPads, or students’ own devices. While issues such as pedagogy and equity offer challenges there are new and exciting ways forward for literacy education in an inclusive learning environment. This chapter will examine attempts to re-define literacy with theories such as ‘multiliteracies’, ‘multimodality’ and ‘new literacies’. These have developed to explain the changes in communication and to offer educators ways to balance the incorporation of new modes of communication with those skills of reading and writing that are seen as core for a literate person.