Multimodal discursive strategies for building social, intellectual, and symbolic capital for women empowerment

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this article is to show how to identify and clarify the roles of distinctive discourses in empowering and advocacy communication meant to create bridging and bonding social capital through building new intellectual and symbolic capital. More precisely, the purpose is to explain the roles of multimodal discursive strategies employed when issues of gender equity and empowerment are communicated in corporate context, viz. in employee magazines, by world-acclaimed women professional athletes and corporate employees. For accomplishing this purpose, a series of multimodal interviews appearing in the Puma’s online employee magazines, Puma Catch Up, are systematically examined. Overall, the study suggests that especially legitimations used by successful professional women are key discursive resources for empowering women across various kinds of borders and for creating a corporate symbolic capital. By outlining how legitimations constitute empowering and advocacy discursive resources, this research work contributes with a multimodal perspective to the field of social change communication.