Sounding out i’m lovin’ it – a multimodal discourse analysis of the sonic logo in commercials for McDonald’s 2003–2018

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6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

While the sonic logo for McDonald’s i’m lovin’ it campaign has been widely distributed and highly praised, little is known about the actual characteristics and meaning potentials of this particular musical discourse. From the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis, this paper seeks to unravel the discourse of the sonic logo as it appears in a collection of 475 commercials from the first fifteen years of the campaign. By adopting an otherwise rarely found diachronic perspective, the examination reveals how the sonic logo changes over time and thereby produces alternating meaning potentials. To account for these changes, the paper offers the concepts of alteration and adaptation. Based on these concepts, the paper reveals novel insights into how music can perform a determinative role in the multimodal discourse. In addition to the traditional functions of sonic logos, the music serves to engage viewers in appropriating the slogan of the campaign. This process is specified as the production of an emotive, which imply an instigation of an emotional engagement–related to current values and ideologies–beyond the more familiar capacities of music to express and induce emotions.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCritical Discourse Studies
Volume16
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)569-582
Number of pages14
ISSN1740-5904
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 May 2019

Keywords

  • McDonald’s
  • Music
  • commercials
  • diachronic analysis
  • multimodal discourse analysis
  • slogan
  • sonic logo

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