Visual Studies Commons^™

Male And Female Interactions: A Multimodal Analysis Of Shonen Manga, Alexandria Perez

The Montana English Journal

A qualitative multimodal content analysis of popular manga examined how female and male character interactions represented gender roles. An analytical tool was developed using multimodal, semiotic, social semiotic, gender, and feminist theories to understand representations of males and females in this popular media. This study showed that traditional gender norms are still present in manga, but there are some that break stereotypes. Also, in using both textual and visual elements to interpret multimodal texts, understanding of character interactions were enhanced because the intermodal interactions created new meaning. Implications suggest positive outlooks for manga being used as an educational tool by …