Beginning of Class Writing: Understanding Digital Literacies, Chapter 4, Multimodality

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary memo of chapter four titled “Multimodality” from Jones and Hafner’s Understanding Digital Literacies. Post it here as a comment to this blog entry.

3 thoughts on “Beginning of Class Writing: Understanding Digital Literacies, Chapter 4, Multimodality

  1. George Gordon

    To: Jason W. Ellis
    From: George Gordon
    Date: March 3rd, 2016
    Subject: Chapter 4 Summary

    In this chapter, multimodality is discussed as our recent technological evolutions have allowed for multi modal content to be more frequently encountered. Images, graphics, video. animation, and sound have changed how text normally worked.This of course made readers and writers learn to be competent visual communicators instead of simply written ones. We have to adapt to our different modes of writing as it brings about different assumptions and require different choices.
    Layout is another concept brought up in this chapter with three layouts being mentioned, the left and the right, the top and the bottom, and the centre and the margin. Of course these concepts may change if working internationally. Researchers have also discovered that we read in an “F like pattern” when reading on a screen. We will read selectively and skim anything else.
    Finally, when we decide to incorporate multi modal content into our work we need to consider how these can work together. We can use images, specifically certain types of shots, to appeal to our audience’s emotions or present visual arguments. With video, we need to make sure any text or image will work with the audio and create a good sense of pace to keep the viewer entertained.

  2. Rownak

    To: Jason W. Ellis
    From: Rownak Choudhury
    Date: March 3rd, 2016
    Subject: Chapter 4 Summary

    This chapter was about ‘Multimodality’. There was emphasis on how the different forms of media can interact with one another. When you have pictures, audio, text, and video interacting with one another, it can affect the user in an intense manner. Multiple modes of expression in one work presented to a user has three different ways that it can be utilized: The different modes can express and emphasize the same idea(s), they can express two contradicting ideas, or fill in the information gap between the information conveyed in one mode.
    One piece of information which I find interesting every time I hear/learn of from different books and professors is how information on a screen is read in an ‘F’ pattern by users. It is not simply a fact presented to me as an emerging professional, but a gateway presented into understanding the complex minds of the user.

  3. Christopher Navarrete

    To: Professor Ellis
    From: Christopher Navarrete
    Date: 3/3/2015
    Subject: Chapter 4 Summary

    In chapter 4 titled “Multimodality,” Jones and Hafner discuss how the shift from text to images has changed the way we read and write. Due to images being more common, it has become increasingly important for both readers and writers to understand the logic of visual communication. One of the key aspects they need to be aware of is how image and text can be combined to make meaning.

    Compared to writing, “the logic of the image is spatial/simultaneous; all of the information in an image is displayed simultaneously, with different elements of the image related to one another in space. Because of this spatial logic, images tend to have a more direct effect, often provoking an immediate emotional reaction from viewers.”

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