Page 63 - Literacy in the New Media Age
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52 LITERACY IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE
Figure 4.2 No smoking sign
about useless as an easily read, quickly apprehended and clear sign to act in a
particular way. The social life of this institution is obviously a complex one,
particularly around the issue of smoking, and so the detail recorded here is no
doubt the imperfect resolution of long debates. Nevertheless, if your
life depended on it, you would want to have the image; if you were litigious, the
image would be useless and the written text essential. In the overall context of
institutional life here, it is also clear that the two modes perform complementary
functions. If there was only the written version, the place would be full of
smoke; if there was only the image, there would be fierce arguments by smokers
insisting on their rights. (There is a discussion of just this kind of text in the chapter
on genre, so I will not bother to do any further analysis here.)
What is clear, even from this extremely cursory discussion, is that the two
modes have different affordances, and therefore each might fit more readily into
one social situation than another. That would be something to investigate: which
type of situation does each of these fit best; which of these situations occurs in
what domains? Which is increasing; which is diminishing? There are many
questions in this direction.
