What’s in a Name? The Anatomy of Defining New/Multi/Modal/Digital/Media Texts:C. Lauer
This is really one of the coolest texts I’ve ready because of the multimodality! The author does an effective job in directly portraying what multimodal text looks like and how it can be interacted with.
I really appreciate the bold and colored words and phrases since that often isn't employed in traditionally academic texts but is interesting and helpful.
Use of interviews and collective discussion in a similar style to Naming What We Know-- contributions to this piece were collected through audio interviews with a variety of scholars in computers and composition (or related) fields who use terms like digital media, multimedia, new media, and multimodal extensively in their scholarship.
new media, multimedia, multimodal, and digital media
Juliet's answer to the question of "What's in a name" is to declare that what we call something does not dictate what that thing actually is.
The rose metaphor featured in the design of this text is symbolic because terms, like roses, can be planted by someone or sprout forth on their own, and whatever the origin, their definitions often develop organically like the blooming of a rose.
First, composing a webtext takes substantially longer than composing a print text because you must attend to both verbal content as well as the other semiotic modes you are using to communicate meaning throughout the text-- hypertext
Because of the complexity of multimodal texts, it takes a village to compose them, and this fundamentally changes how it feels to be an author.
reading was constructed first in Prezi, then Flash, and finally HTML5
Unlike much of our published scholarship, which relies heavily on static, written language, our voices rely on spoken language, which provide additional layers of information through the cadence and tone and tenor that we accompany our words with.
definitions should be understood as complex and multifaceted organisms that can evolve over time and carry with them whole histories of meaning and interpretation.
Audience-Oriented: Definitions are neither static nor consistent, but can change depending on the audience to whom a term is being directed.
Contextual: A term's definition originates from and cannot exist outside of the social, historical, political, and technological context in which it is developed.
Historically Situated: Terms do not exist in a vacuum but carry with them the multitude of past understandings, practices, and uses. Terms can, in their very names, call attention to or move away from their histories.
Limited: Terms are necessarily limited in scope and what they can represent.
Multiple: Terms can be appropriated and defined differently to suit the purposes of members of different discourse communities.
Precise: Terms are often defined using precise language.
Relative: Terms are often defined in relation to other terms and what is similar or different about each.
The interviews remind me of a podcast style but these are accompanied by a direct text which is really great