Blog Post #6

Multimodality relates to the mixture of several types of media in order to convey a clearer, more cohesive message to the audience. For example, a mutimodal piece would include the use of a text based portion, as well as a visual or audible portion. This would enhance the audience’s experience with the overall piece and result in a better understanding. Modes can be defined as a vehicle that is used to drive ideas/concepts into the minds of the audience. Wherein, the audience uses their senses to experience the message that the author is trying to convey. This can be done through the use of textual, audible, and visual stimuli that entices the audience to become engaged in the overall concept. The tension that exists between Kress and Wysocki relates to their conception of how time and space relate to the definition of word and image. On one hand, words are connected to time and space through the conceptualization that they experience when they come into contact with a definition. A word gets its relation to time and space through the definition that it is given. An image, however, is a more tangible and less arbitrary thing to behold and therefore is not bound to the conceptualization that can bind it to time and space. In other words: words, have a less stable relationship to time and space whereas images are bound by their realistic properties. That, I feel is the point that Wysocki is trying to impose on his audience.

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