Page 128 - Literacy in the New Media Age

MULTIMODALITY, MULTIMEDIA AND GENRE 117

If we take Figure 5.2 (see Chapter 5) as an example, it is clear that there are
three elements or blocks at the first level. These are predominantly visual, but the
point is that in our first engagement with and analysis of (‘scanning’ might be
another useful term) the page we note the three blocks. We then note that each
image has accompanying it a written bolded label. So at the next level down our
analysis reveals that each block consists of two elements, in a particular relation.
That relation is in part defined in mode terms – large image, relatively small label
– and in part by proximity – the label is at a certain distance from the image,
indicating that it ‘goes with’ the image. At the third level down, the analysis
reveals lower-level elements both in the visual mode and in writing, and here too
the relation is that of labelling. Because the relationship is not so obvious – the
elements are smaller, and the ‘goes with’ relation could be misinterpreted – it is
indicated by a connecting line.
It is clear that here the question of genre no longer rests with the written
mode. If we wish to understand the social relations realised in this text, we need
to look predominantly at the visual mode. The verbal mode supplies text-
elements, namely ‘labels’, and labels do of course also have generic effect – they
supply the information of ‘name’, and supplying information is to take and
assign a specific social role. In the original, the images are in heavily saturated
colour, deep reds, purples, yellows, some green – all close to the primary part of
the colour spectrum. We are not in the same domain as the black-and-white
drawing of the students, nor in that of the student who used colour pencils. Nor
are we in the coding orientation of the circuit diagrams in Chapter 9. This is the
world of excitement, entertainment, pleasure, the world of consumer culture, and
science has become a part of that. That is perhaps the first thing to note about
this page/screen. We are shown the retina from the side, signalling lower
involvement with what we are looking at than in either the onion-cell drawings,
which were front-on, or the circuits, which also were. We are looking down on
the square which is a hypothetical slice out of the retina. Standing apart
(signalling low involvement) and looking down on (signalling greater power of
the viewer) bring highly affective subjective elements into the social relation.
These objects or entities do not demand our attention by the front-on objective
demand – of the circuit diagram or of the onion-cell drawing. We, the viewers,
are in control here, it is our will and our pleasure which dictates what we do. The
distance at which these entities are presented is at mid-range: a distance which
can signal some engagement, but not too close.
Generically this image suggests a social relation like that of the report; this is
what there is; this is all there is; I have shown you all. However, the image,
through its spatial affordances, can bring aspects of social relations into the text
which might be problematic in a written genre in school science. For instance,
there is a clear appeal to the viewer in the angles I mentioned, in the social
domain signalled by the hyper-realist representation, including the intense
saturation of the colours, and by the dynamism indicated by the angle of the