Currently, I do not know of any major difference between the terms "multimedia" and "multimodal." They appear to both refer to content that uses video, audio, text and more. Perhaps, multimodal has some modes such as gestural which differ from aspects of multimedia. Aside from that, the two terms seem to refer to very similar concepts.
Response:The Linguistic Mode
I noticed some linguistic choices in this statement such as the phrase “Japanese friends” and “America will stand with Japan” which publicly show camaraderie and American support for Japan. The first word choice that captured my attention was “prayers.” I am not certain what the specific purpose of this word choice is, but I am convinced that it was intentionally used as part of a rhetorical strategy.
Response: The Visual Mode
The profile on the right consists of darker colors, whereas the profile on the left consists of lighter colors. The left profile has a picture of a person and the right profile has a picture of an cartoon animal. Some obvious assumptions can be made from viewing each profile. Some of these assumptions might be that the owner of the profile on the right likes animals and possibly animation. I have no idea what either of the individuals use twitter for. I have a twitter account. I believe the visual template is the default for new twitter users. If my memory serves me correctly, I did not select a specific visual template. .
Response: The Aural Mode
The speaker’s voice is soft and clear. Her emphasis of certain words and lack of monotone voice make listening to her message easy and enjoyable. The choice of background music fits the video well. The sound seems to be fairly well synchronized with many of the images that are shown. If the music were changed to country or bluegrass, it might not fit the video as well. Additionally, it might also distract from the speaker’s words.
Response: The Spatial Mode
My eye is drawn to the middle of the page where the changing images appear and to the left corner where it says Washington State University. This spatial layout makes it so that the information that is read first is learning, research and community. This communicates a particular message about the university. By presenting this information in the center of the page, it asserts that learning, research, and community are three aspects of the university that are significantly emphasized. If the information in the middle of the page was switched with the information at the bottom of the page it would make the page seem unbalanced, like it was heavier at the bottom. It would look very strange and take away from the visual rhetoric that is being applied to the homepages current spatial layout.
Response: The Gestural Mode
I watched the “Putting Country Ahead of Party” video in which the president adresses issues surrounding the topic of the video. Throughout the video, Obama frequently uses hand gestures and also uses facial expressions. Obama is a gifted public speaker and can be very effective at persuading his audience. I do not quite see how his hand or facial gestures strengthen this speech though. Perhaps this is because I do not yet fully understand the rhetorical value of the gestural mode in this particular context (the video speech). I look forward to better understanding and eventually applying this mode.
The Q&A here got better as it went. Sometimes even if we're not sure something (like in the linguistic mode here) was an intentional choice, that doesn't mean we can't still talk about what effects it might have. You moved away from this in the latter modes and did a really good job, just be cautious of the "I can't talk to the author so I can't say anything" trap :)
ReplyDeleteAs for definitions, we'll talk more in class. Everyone has a differing opinion, but a lot of folks seem to be coming down on the idea that modes comprise a medium, thus any multimedia text includes a range of modes. But...we'll talk more in class.
Thanks.
I completely agree that these two concepts are fairly similar. However, perhaps multimodal contributes to multimedia and the choice behind multimedia was made to accomplish a different effect on the audience. For me, I believe multimodal easily stands on its own as an effective form of communication but I think it also overlaps with multimedia. Yet controversially, I don't think multimedia is able to take on other forms like multimodal does since it's formed around impacting viewers by building strong visuals using technology.
ReplyDeleteI hope that makes sense... It's a complicated concept since they are so similar and it seems like everyone's definitions of the two differs slightly to begin with. Either way though, I agree with you that there is no overall major difference since they are made up of similar modes.
I agree that multimodal and multimedia are pretty close in definition. I think that the different modes are present in different multimedia uses. I almost think that the different modes refer to the delivery of the text or idea while the term multimedia refers more to the medium that the idea was presented.
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