Multimodal Metadiscourse in Influencer Review Videos: A Case Study
Abstract
Influencer review videos (IRVs) are a multimodal digital genre in which creators combine textual and visual resources to organize evaluations and address viewers. This case study examines the distribution and functions of textual and visual metadiscourse in 12 beauty-related IRVs from a YouTube influencer. The analysis combines quantitative and qualitative approaches, drawing on Hyland’s textual metadiscourse model and De Groot et al.’s visual metadiscourse framework, with relevant concepts from Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar used to interpret visual realizations. Textual metadiscourse was identified with AntConc, whereas visual metadiscourse was manually annotated in ELAN by two coders. Both analyses were conducted by two coders, with Cohen’s kappa indicating strong inter-coder agreement for textual (κ = 0.97) and visual coding (κ = 0.92). Textual frequencies were normalized to occurrences per 1,000 words, while visual frequencies were normalized to occurrences per minute of video footage. The qualitative analysis examined how the identified resources functioned in context. The findings show that textual metadiscourse is dominated by interactional resources, particularly self-mentions and engagement markers, while transitions are the most frequent interactive resource. Visual metadiscourse shows a more balanced distribution between interactive and interactional resources. Transitions, attitude markers, and boosters are particularly prominent, whereas visual evidentials and code glosses occur infrequently, and no visual hedges are identified. Functionally, textual and visual metadiscourse contribute to discourse organization, evaluation and stance, and viewer orientation. These functions underscore the significance of both textual and visual metadiscourse in IRVs. The study extends metadiscourse research into multimodal communication and the genre of IRVs, while also exploring the applicability of a refined visual metadiscourse framework to IRVs.