Discussion Leader:
Week 2
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Phil Dunn
Kress
Key Points
Binary Constellations of Modes and
Media
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What Kress says is that the medium of the
book and the mode of writing are connected
and the medium of the screen and the mode of
image are connected. Kress’ point is that since
there is this intense relationship with writing
and books and screen and image the decline of
books becomes the decline writing and vice
versa. This is the fuel for what he calls a
revolution in multimedia the past 20-30 years.
Writing Vague/ Image Specific
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Before we get into the major gains and losses that Kress
presents, I wanted to touch on this idea that Kress has that the
writing/book binary is seen as a very vague type of mode and
the image/screen binary is seen as more specific and clear.
He backs up this statement by saying words rely on convention
and on conventional acceptance, words are always general
and, therefore, vague. Words being nearly empty of meaning
need filling with the hearer and/or reader’s meaning.
(Semiotically, words are signifiers, not signs: When they are
used in representation they become signs—of the maker and of
the receiver and/or remaker.) We treat that as the act of
interpretation.
With depiction and with images the situation is different: that
which I wish to depict I can depict, at the moment at any rate. I
can draw whatever I like whenever I like to draw it. Unlike
words, depictions are full of meaning;
Sequence
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A way that Kress shows the vagueness of writing is by Sequence. Sequence is used
to make meaning; being first has the potential to mean something other than being
second or being last. The meaning attached to first and second and last depends on
the culture that has fashioned this resource into syntax and texture. Being first may
mean being first in the speaker’s attention (the theme of a sentence), or being first
in power (the actor in a transitive clause), or being cause of an action, and no doubt
many other possibilities. In a sentence such as “Jeremy married Amantha”, Jeremy
might be occupying first position because he is actor in this action and/or event, or
because he is the one who was responsible for this action, or because I am closer to
Jeremy as my friend than I am to Amantha; and indeed, he may have been causal in
this event.
Another model he presents to show the specifics of image is the plant cell nucleus
example. If I say, “A plant cell has a nucleus”, expressing this bit of knowledge
through the mode of writing (or speech) I have to relate the entity “plant cell” with
the entity “nucleus” via the verb “have”. This expresses a relation of possession, of
ownership. I have to use a word expressing a specific kind of relationship between
cell and nucleus. When I draw a cell, say to demonstrate what it might be like, on a
whiteboard, I will draw a circle-like entity and place a dot somewhere in that circle.
I do not have to express anything about the characteristics of the relation between
nucleus and cell—the spatial arrangement does that for me.
Authority and Authorship
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One of the first gain/loss Kress shows us has to do with the topic of
reading. Kress believe if new media is changing the norms of reading then
we must change and adapt as new readers
He says if the changed notions of reading are bringing about changes in
what readers are, then new modal uses and new media are having equally
profound effects on writing and on the notion of author and of authority.
The screen offers the facility in ways that the book did not do overtly or
concretely offer for the reader to become author, even in the process
of reading. I can change the text that comes to me on the screen. My means
of disseminating my message are now much like those of other authors.
That factor, of course, brings about a radical change to notions of authority:
When everyone can be an author authority is severely challenged. The
social frames that had supported the figure of the author have disappeared
or are disappearing and with that the force of social power that vested
authority in the work of the author.
Through this statement Kress also sees a change in the way we take in
knowledge and information and even learn as human beings.
Knowledge and information
(Boy Electrician/Prospectus/IoE Web site)
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As Kress pointed out with new media comes a change in authorship and authority, and with that change
comes the challenge of how we accept new information presented to us.
Writing was the dominant mode in the IoE prospectus, though there were some (black and white) images.
The current IoE home page is profoundly different. It is not organized following the logic of the
traditional written page but following that of the image-based logic of contemporary pages. Tellingly
and more significantly, this page has thirteen distinct entry points where the 1992 page had one. We can
rightly ask what the significance of that might be. Kress’ explanation has to do with the notion of order:
The traditional page had one entry point—though being so naturalized by centuries-long convention, it
was not even noticeable as a feature. It was an entry point given by convention and used by the author
(and the readers). Access to the power of authorship was strictly governed. Here, on the webpage, the
presence of thirteen entry points speaks of a very different principle: the author(s) of this page clearly
have in mind that visitors will come to this page from quite different cultural and social spaces, in
differing ways, and with differing interests, not necessarily known to or knowable by the maker(s) of the
page. There is no pregiven, no clearly discernible reading path, either of the home page or of each
individual page, or of the site as a whole (the issue of navigation, where maps are relatively unreliable).
The existence of the different entry points speaks of a sense of insecurity about the visitors, a feeling of
fragmentation of the audience—who now are no longer just readers but visitors, a quite different action
being implied in the change of name. What the visitors come to find is not knowledge but information; in
this new semiotic world, it is the readers who fashion their own knowledge, from information supplied
by the makers of the site. That corresponds to a profound change in the situation of authors, readers and
knowledge:
“Information is material which is selected by individuals to be transformed by them into knowledge to
solve a problem in their life-world”
Learning
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Now a look at how this extends to
how we take in that knowledge
and learn
This picture shows a now entirely
usual teaching aid: textbook pages
in school science are like this
example, but forty, even thirty
years earlier they would have
been covered in writing.
Now lets challenge the image in
front of us is it possible to answer
the following questions:
What does reading mean here?
How is this page read?
Which mode is dominant?
Which mode carries which kind
of information?
What is the reading path—if any?
Comparison of Writing to Screen
1929 (publication year of The Boy Electrician) and 1992 (publication year of
IoE Prospectus)
• Given order, order designed by author.
• Page and book with single entry point.
• Knowledge produced by author on behalf of the audience.
• Author knows the life-world of audience and its requirements.
• Reading path fixed (though “naturalized” and hence invisible).
• Author fixes reader’s “point of departure”.
• Writing dominates the organization of the page.
• Writing is the dominant mode for the presentation of material (image as illustration).
• Use of mode governed by long-established convention: canonical use of modes.
2004 Website
• Open order, order designed by reader.
• “Page” site with multiple entry points.
• Knowledge produced by visitor/reader in accord with the needs of their life-world.
• Page and/or message designers imagine the assumed characteristic of the life-world of
their audience.
• Reading path designed by reader and/or visitor.
• Reader designs/selects her/his point of departure.
• Image dominates the organization of the “page”.
• Image and writing potentially co-equal for the presentation of material.
• Use of mode governed by “aptness”, insecurity about or absence of canonical modes.
McDonagh, D., Goggin,
N., & Squier, J. (MGS)
Key Points
Kress Has a Challenger
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MGS comments focus on the two paragraphs below, in which Kress
establishes a dichotomy between words and images:
Because words rely on convention and on conventional acceptance, words
are always general, and therefore vague. Words being nearly empty of
meaning need filling with the hearer/reader’s meaning. We treat that as the
act of interpretation. With ‘depiction’ and with images the situation is
different: that which I wish to depict, I can depict—at the moment at any
rate. I can draw whatever I like whenever I like to draw it. Unlike words,
depictions are full of meaning; they are always specific. So on the one hand
there is a finite stock of words—vague, general, nearly empty of meaning;
on the other hand there is an infinitely large potential of depictions—
precise, specific, and full of meaning.
MGS challenges this reading saying vague words and precise images—to
categorize them so broadly tends to oversimplify reality. This binary, under
inspection, simply does not hold up
In the following slides we will present three examples MGS used to back
up their statements toward Kress
Example 1
The first example MGS presents is the
picture of the ice cream cone on the first
page of the reading. The ice cream cone
physically resembles the object that it
represents; one immediately knows that
ice cream cones are sold here. But there
are few images that one can point to and
see a complete and direct representation of
its object. Even in the case of the ice
cream advertisement, some subtle
contextualizing and interpretation occurs.
Most readers will know immediately, for
instance, that this is not a national
franchise’s advertisement. The
advertisement’s style—not just the icon’s
stylistic qualities, but also the layout and
typography—all suggest a retro nostalgia
quite distinct from national ice cream
chains in the United States, such as Baskin
Robbins or Dairy Queen.
This gives proof to MGS claim that there is
more to images then Kress originally stated
in his article.
Example 2
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In this image MGS presents the idea
what if you were given just the three
images on the page with no words
how would you be able to pin point
the specific meaning of this Web
page.
Without this context, these images
present only vague facts: a group
meeting of some sort, a human hand
touching a clay object. But the written
text, in combination with the layout
and organization of the screen, is
what supplies these images with their
meaning and their specificity: We
know that we are observing students
creating art work and interacting in a
typical classroom setting.
The texts also further proves that the
pictures fit because they are art school
related.
Example 3
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Contrary to Kress’ claims, symbolic
depictions are generally vague and offer the
possibility of multiple readings. Example 3
offers another explanation by MGS.
Although the facts of the image are
Specific—a woman stands in a bedroom
looking into a mirror—what this depiction
might mean remains open to interpretation.
In the absence of other information—text,
other images, organizational cues—
individual readers are likely to construct
different narratives from the same
photograph. This image, by itself, presents
facts but contains no inherent meaning.
What meaning readers might gain is
interpretive and highly subjective
Readers of this image might choose to
emphasize any number of symbolic
elements:
 the use of a mirror image,
 the clothes draped over the footboard of
the bed,
 the point of view from which the
photograph was shot.
Although this might be bad news from the Kress
vantage point, for most artists and designers this
plasticity is exactly what draws them to images
rather than words. Images are visceral and
immediate. They are deeply attached to shared
understandings and one’s inner voice.
Mood Boards
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From my point of view MGS added this section
to further prove the deep meaning images can
carry sometimes.
Mood boards are a visual tool that enables the
designer to visualize ideas or emotions that do
not lend themselves to words. This tool can
inspire designers to further articulate and refine
their ideas
Their primary function is one of inspiration, both
for an individual designer and a design team
design solutions.
Their secondary function is one of
communication. This may support the internal
dialogue for the individual designer, and, in
addition, dialogue between a team of designers
and broader stakeholders in the product
development process.
Mood boards are employed precisely because
images have the capacity to construct meaning in
an abstracted and ambiguous manner.
This section really shows the layers that images
have and how they are open to interpretation
What do you think?
Prior
Key Points
Another
Challenger, Man
This Kress Guy
Has it Rough
J. Martin Miller’s book An Official History of the Japanese-Russian
War that was published in 1904 and, thus, was well ensconced in
what Kress has identified as the settled age of print literacy
presented in traditional book formats. The two pages contain four
photographs, captioned, each of which is discussed in the text plus
an image of a Japanese text. The layout of these two pages is
complex and includes typographic highlighting with centered,
larger, bold typefaces, not only for a quasi-heading embedded in a
sentence in the middle of the second page but also for two names,
likewise embedded within sentences. The following page is no
simpler, including facsimiles of letters (hand written and typed)
from the United States Secretary of State and General Miles.
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One of Prior’s first faults
with Kress was to argue
the statement that no
multimedia existed until
as early as the 1970’s
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Prior gave a few
examples, I’ll give you
one here another on the
next slide.
Other Examples
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Kress argues that written texts have long had a rigidly defined,
conventional reading path and that the multiple entry points of,
for example, the London Institute of Education (IoE) webpage
represent a revolutionary change, as visitors and/or readers
have to make choices that would have already been made for
them in a book.
However, consider the following list of genres that have
multiple entry points and typically self-organized reading
paths: newspapers, magazines, dictionaries, encyclopedias,
cook books, restaurant menus, quilts, hymnals, atlases, legal
statues, university academic policy statements, product
catalogues, tapestries, books of poetry, field guides to plants
and animals, phone books, travel guides, the Bible, posters,
product instructions, grammar books, and lists of all kinds
Prior on Sequence
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Kress’ attempts to describe modes in terms of mutually exclusive, binary
affordances which repeatedly leads to selective examples selectively read.
Kress suggests, for example, that language is sequential by comparing
sentences like the following:
Bill hit Mary. vs. Mary hit Bill.
The sun rose and the mist cleared. vs. The mist cleared and the sun rose.
However, sequence is not alone responsible for the meaning effects.
Consider further examples:
Bill hit Mary. Bill was hit by Mary. (No sequence change but a change in
meaning.)
I put on my shoes and socks. I put on my socks and shoes. (Change in order
but not meaning.)
I read my book, and Katie wrote in her diary. Katie wrote in her diary, and I
read my book. (Change in order of clauses, but no inference of causation or
evoking of different worlds.)
Language is inflectional as well as sequential and the narrative causal
interpretation of different sequences is part of a broader interpretative
pattern. Moreover, it is clear that images are also sequential. Film is one
example, but print comics and process diagrams are other examples.
Lauer
Multimedia/Multimodal
Key Points
To Understand Multimodal and Multimedia you
have to know Mode and Medium
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The difference between multimodal and multimedia is
largely a difference between “modes” and “media.”
Modes can be understood as ways of representing
information, or the semiotic channels we use to compose
a text.
Examples of modes include words, sounds, still and
moving images, animation and color.
Media, on the other hand, are the “tools and material
resources” used to produce and disseminate text.
Examples of media include books, radio, television,
computers, paint brush and canvas, and human voices.
Multimedia (Industry)
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Jim Heid defined multimedia as “the integration of two or
more communications media. It’s the use of text and sounds,
plus still and moving pictures, to convey ideas, sell products,
educate, and/or entertain”
Hofstetter defined multimedia as “the use of a computer to
present and combine text, graphics, audio, and video with links
and tools that let the user navigate, interact, create, and
communicate”
As the name implies, multimedia is the integration of multiple
forms of media. This includes text, graphics, audio, video, etc.
For example, a presentation involving audio and video clips
would be considered a “multimedia presentation.” Educational
software that involves animations, sound, and text is called
“multimedia software.”
Multimodal (Academic)
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Selfe and Takayoshi defined multimodal texts as
those that “exceed the alphabetic and may include
still and moving images, animations, color, words,
music and sound”
Use of the words multimedia and multimodal
Other names for multimedia and multimodal
• Digital and new media communications
technologies
• Multimodal, multimedia texts
• Multimodal experiences
• Array of multimedia
• Media experiences
• Multimodal composing
• Multiple forms of new media
• Multimodal new media texts
Multimedia vs. Multimodal
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Similar to the previous discussion multimedia is used
to describe texts whose worth is determined by their
successful production and distribution, not by the
process an author took to compose them. It is also a
term you see more in industry circles.
Multimodal, on the other hand, is regularly used to
characterize the cognitive and socially-situated
choices a student or scholar makes while in the
process of composing a text, before it enters into final
production and distribution. Though rightly so the
correct version of the word, in most cases it is used in
the academic realm.
BYE