The teaching programme “Multimodal Small Stories & Authentic Digital Positioning” will be part of the master seminar “Strategie communicative della lingua tedesca” (Professor Dr Alessandra Lombardi). During all parts of the course, the methodological focus will be on digital communication strategies and positioning. First, this will entail individual multimodal positioning through images, texts/captions, and comments on the platform Instagram. The second part will then focus on authentic positioning in multimodal videos. Here, TikTok will be used as an exemplary platform.

Students will be introduced to relevant methods from digital sociolinguistics, which will be discussed against the backdrop of German and Italian intercultural communication. For the joint analysis, we will rely on a topical corpus of social media museum communication from the aforementioned platforms (as well as individual positioning within this context). In addition to positioning, methodological aspects of multimodality will be explored. To conclude the course, training in text production (self-positioning) will foster practices such as reducing complexity, structuring topics, and making audience-oriented choices of relevance.

Erasmus+ at the Facoltà di Scienze linguistiche e letterature straniere, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano/Brescia