4. Meaning Making Practise 1. Visual Art medium of social and cultural debate articulate contemporary societies and cultures
5.
6. Contextual and Intrinsic Meanings 1. Reading Visual Text c. Do not underestimate the author b. Understanding of literacy mobilize the visual a. Read visual arts in relation to other text
7. 2. Understanding Visual Text Discourse Genres( eg. website) Internactuality Visual Strategies information, Identity Contemporary values, beliefs, feelings, and ideas
8. 3. the Website Case study: HistoryWired a. Use of Mix of Modalities As a Website: free multimedia experience As an Institutional site: an authorized narrative about the society and cultures. *Spirit of Stratigy: freedom and limitation of the democratic citizen
to discuss the ways that visuals operate to produce meaning or potential meanings in multimedia and multi-modal texts.
Visuality, refers to the quality, condition or degree of visible things. The study of which becomes popular recently, related to the development of multimedia technologies. Visual Text, in the same time, generated out of a long history of Visuality, is a sub-type of multimodal/multimedia text, making its meanings with images and writing.
visuality is a meaning system just like writing. There are 2 evidences. First is about visual art. The pictures on the top of the slideshows the Indian Twin artists and their work. in the non-Anglo perspectives they present contemporary iconography in the multi-ethnic western society. The pictures on the bottom are artists named Giger and his most famous work Alien. His aliens routinely ’penetrate both male and females bodies; therefore, it reflects the social debate about gender role.
Second evidence is about the look of writing. For example, fronts become visuals when put in text form. The most popular fron in the 1990s called template gothic, is stereotypically for the imperfect language in an imperfect world. Newspaper front page combine the design of both image and layout to make meanings or potential meanings.
In order to deeply understand a visual test, there are 3 principles in reading. First, images could not be isolated away from relevant knowledge. For example, in order to understand the contemporary visual arts we mentioned, we need to understand western society. Second, text is essential to understand the author’s real purpose on the image. Because different people might have different view on a single image. Third, visuals would not block the meaning or potential meaning of text if the artists have enough knowledge in that field.
in order to understand the production of visual text, There are 3 concepts need to be aware, discourse, genres, and intersexuality. First, Discourse, it means we need to understand the meaning with interaction of verbal and visual. Second, genres, refers to any set of text using similar strategies to make meanings. Different genres have different characters. For example, websites offers self-directed activity. Third, intertecuality enables us to understand the potential meaning of the text with more than one genre. For example, text front used in the website is significant to make potential meanings. Therefore, Visual Strategies need to emphasis before the production of visual text, because means every visual choice is significant. Information, identity, and contemporary values, beliefs, feelings and ideas, all need to be considered in the strategy.
The website is the most typical genre of multimodal text. it enables us to situate this kind of text within the vast textual network that constitutes our cultural environment. And we got a case study here, about a American Webside called: HistoryWired. Firstly, as an website –use mixed of modalities and offer self-direct activity. Secondly, as an institutional website of the government, - it offers an authorized narrative about the society and cultures. Then, to combine both, the design give the audience the Spirit of Stratigy: freedom and limitation of the democratic citizen
Layout diagram is not a rigid map but based on cultural history of western design. The quarters of the grip in the website followed the standard layout diagram. Front: old English manuscript, means authority The image show the website is from US and the blue color, the main color shows serious pursuits.
With the discussions so far, it is clear that visuals has been embedded in our daily lives. ------- Visuals becomes a part of information/knowledge production. For this fact, concerns in both optimistic and pessimistic concerns could be both made.
1.Because of other modal, writing might be less emphasized, however, Literature might worth a thousand pictures 2.Mendacious advertising- it is common to meet annoying ads when you open a websites 3.Sensationalistic –sometimes the multimodal's are not necessary
I hope these concerns could be useful in the future study in multimedia text field.
