¿Cómo analizar contenidos digitales? Una revisión de enfoques para la investigación en proyectos multimodales, transmedia y multiplataforma

Abstract

In recent years there has been an exponential multiplication of media content, platforms and uses. After contextualizing the decline of the great theoretical currents of communication and exposing the linguistic bias of semiotics, this article proposes a review and characterization of the referential instruments and methodologies for the analysis of textual, multimodal and transmedia objects, with special emphasis on those of a connected digital nature. For this purpose, an integrative review of 75 documents that address the issue is carried out, leaving the final sample composed of the 25 most relevant for the purposes of the research. The epistemological-instrumental route goes from the Structural Analysis of the Story to Computer Vision, passing through Digital Ethnography and Multimodal Discourse Analysis. The conclusions include a sketch of an analysis instrument that synthesizes the study carried out, previously revealing the axiom put forward by several authors that there is no single invariable method for the study of this type of objects. The tendency, on the contrary, points to the atomization of research on specific aspects, rather than to a search for the generalization of results and the consolidation of theoretical bodies and universalizable techniques. It is also noted that quantitative turn and algorithmic programming for the study of digital objects open up a new analytical dimension with transhuman capabilities that is still far from being accessible to the international scientific community.