Multisensory processing, affect and multimodal manipulation: Investigating travel documentaries

This paper explores the subject’s embodied relationship with the media environment by looking at the aspects of multisensory processing and affect within the field of empirical multimodal research. More specifically, a sample analysis from a case study is offered to highlight how affect, engaged with through the multisensorial experience of a travel documentary viewer, plays a role in facilitating the successful deployment of manipulative discourse. The key concepts of manipulation and epistemic vigilance are discussed before providing a review of findings from the neurosciences and their relevance to the study of affect in empirical multimodal research. A sample analysis is then offered to exemplify the line of enquiry adopted, with the suggestion that, in travel documentaries, successful manipulative discourse relies not only on “limiting the processes of contextual selection” (Maillat and Oswald, 2009: 361), but also on limiting the emotional response of the viewer, predominantly through the music mode. Possible venues for future research are discussed in the conclusion.