Communication in contemporary society increasingly combines language with one or more different modalities, such as visual images, sound and spatial layout. Explores the techniques and theoretical frameworks useful in analysing how such multi-modal texts create meaning and construct positions for readers, and considers a range of texts from printed advertisements and magazines, to web pages, CD Roms, and public sites such as shops, museums and galleries. Aspects covered include the 'grammar' of visual images, the interaction of verbal and other modalities, ideological dimensions of multi-modal texts, literacy and access.