Post 7: Multimodality

Part 1:

On the first page, Kress wrote something that stuck with me while I continued reading: “Multimodality can tell us what modes are used. It cannot tell us about this difference in style; it has no means to tell us what that difference might mean” (1). For example, with signs, there are always going to be design principles that are the same (like framing), but the way people go about doing that is different. Kress refers to these not as “universal” but as “shared by all human cultures” (10). What I believe to be one of the more important parts of Kress’ theory in relation to semiotics, is the difference between ideas and reactions/responses.

Kress discusses, in length, the difference between the rhetor, the designer, and the audience. The rhetor’s job is to create the message; the designer’s job is to realize who the audience is and how they react in order to create something they will acknowledge. If they do not engage the audience appropriately, there will be no true communication. One passage stuck out more to me, and it was:

“The rhetor has a political purpose: to bring about an alignment between her or his message, with its ideological position and the position of the audience with their ideological position. The designer has a semiotic purpose: to shape the message, using the available representational resources, for the best possible alignment between the purposes of the rhetor and the semiotic resources of the audience: mediating the features of what is to be communicated with the resources and characteristics of the audience.” (49)

Sometimes, and likely often, the rhetor and the designer are the same person. Modes are fairly common amongst human cultures, but the semiotic resources used to create them will be interpreted and engaged with differently by different audiences.

Metadata tags: signs; rhetor; design; multimodality; semiotics

Part 2:

I will be applying Kress and Van Leeuwan’s terms to my Fitbit video created for Post #4. My video is situated in two discourses (at least more so than any other): Fitness watch users and YouTube users. The semiotic resources (which also include mediums and modes I believe) used were an iPhone 10, a Fitbit Versa, a kitchen scale and container, food items, and the door to my house. These resources could have different meanings, but when situated together and within my discourses, they can be understood as items related to health and fitness. My design was dramatic on purpose; if any reason is applicable, it was to draw attention. A simple video about the “negative” effects of a fitness watch may not be first choice to watch. Because a Fitbit is already a piece of technology, creating a YouTube video is not stepping too far out of bounds in that regard. In terms of distribution, there really wasn’t any aside from the publication on YouTube and uploading it to the blog for this class. While YouTube can be a simple form of distribution, without proper advertising and placement elsewhere, people will most likely not watch it.

Part 3:

I think that this book touches on a lot of important things and expands greatly on the article we read last week. It makes important points about the role of the rhetor, designer, and audience to show how each of those roles need to consider different things that all assist in the process of communication. If the rhetor/designer communicates but the audience doesn’t, there is no real communication happening. My composition more or less did not have an audience other than you, but there are definitely some things I would have done differently had I had a different intended audience. For me, it is hard to consider these things hypothetically.