Visualizing digital discourse: Interactional, institutional and ideological perspectives is a book focused on understanding what role visual communication plays in digital media platforms. The authors develop a better way to view how ‘linguistic and communicative practices are multimodally accomplished’ (1). This book analyzes digital discourse in various language contexts including French (Rachel Panckhurst & Francesca Frontini), Finnish (Sirpa Leppänen) and German (Dorothee Meer & Katharina Staubach). It also covers different topics through numerous data collected from digital media.

This book consists of three parts, with twelve chapters in total. The flagship first chapter by Rodney Jones is independent of all three sections, offering an integrated framework through a case study of selfies. This chapter explores how people utilize such images and pictures to negotiate ‘being-in-the-world’ (Dasein) and ‘being-with’ (and for) other social actors (Mitsein) (Heidegger 2008).

Following the first chapter, Part 1 discusses how emojis are employed in digital discourse from both micro level and macro level perspectives through quantitative approaches. The authors discuss the impact of using emojis (e.g. Crispin Thurlow & Vanessa Jaroski view emojis as threats to words, thus ‘language endangerment’), positioning emojis in terms of communicative mode (e.g. Georg Albert's question on emojis functioning like words or images or somewhere between), and the actual utilization of emojis in a larger context (e.g. Panckhurst & Frontini's study on uses of emojis in SMS messages).

Part 2 examines the social meaning of visual resources from personal and interpersonal perspectives. The types of data vary widely and interestingly, including ‘homing blogs’ (Leppänen) that revisualize motherhood and index ‘particularly social, cultural and gendered identities’ (112), game commenters on YouTube (‘Let's Plays’) where the audience is absent (Axel Schmidt & Konstanze Marx), virtual tours through video chats (Dorottya Cserző), and photo sharing among romantic partners and close friends (Rebecca Venema & Katharina Lobinger).

Whereas Part 2 focuses on the daily use of digital visual media at an interactional level, Part 3 turns to the subject of how digital visual resources are implemented in more formal and commercial contexts. Hartmut Stöckl points out the essential differences between old/print media and new/social media and suggests that image-centric practices are significantly affected by ‘functional and relational affordances of media’ (190). Other authors also examine visual resources on new/social media platforms containing visualization of ‘good taste’ on Instagram by Lara Portmann, viral content on Facebook by Jana Pflaeging, and ‘haul’ videos in which social media influencers demonstrate their new purchases on YouTube by Meer & Staubach.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have had to work and study online and migrate their communications from in-person to online contexts. As a result, communications through digital media both in interpersonal and institutional settings have rapidly increased, and this state of affairs may last for the foreseeable future. As the very first book primarily focused on exploring the impact of visuality in digital discourse, this volume provides a pioneering and forward-looking perspective on the new normal.