1. Multimodal rhetoric
January 29, 2018

2. Multimodality: what is it?
The word “multimodal” is a mash-up of multiple and mode.
A mode is a way of communicating. Modes include words, images, sounds, and gestures.
MULTImodal describes how we combine different ways of communicating in everyday life.

3. The Rhetorical Situation
Audience
Purpose
Context

4. Audience Who is the intended audience?
Who might be the secondary audience(s)?
What values or opinions do the primary and secondary audiences hold?
How does the author use design elements to appeal to these values or opinions?

5. Purpose What do you consider the overall intention for the text?
Did any multimodal elements led you to this conclusion?
Might there be one or more secondary intentions? Why do you think so?

6. context What is the medium and why do you think the author chose it?
What are the historical conventions for this type of text?
What are the social and cultural connotations within the text?
How will readers interact with this text? (on phone? Tablet? Web? While walking? Sitting? Etc)

7. Design choices: emphasis
Visual emphasis means giving certain elements greater importance, significance or stress than other elements in the text.
What is emphasized here and why?

8. Design choices: contrast
Visual contrast means combining elements to make one stand out from another. Contrast can happen through color, size, placement, shape, and content.
How is contrast used here? To what ends?

9. Design choices: color
Analyzing a text for color means noticing not only what colors are being used, but to what effect.
Do the colors create a certain mood or feeling?
Do they work to emphasize a particular element?
Or do they work to highlight certain elements on the page in relation to one another?

10. Design choices: organization
The way in which elements are arranged to form a coherent unit or functioning whole.
What elements are on a page and what is their relationship to one another?
What is the hierarchy of elements?

11. Design choices: alignment
How things line up to help our eye (or sometimes NOT help) move across information.
Think about left, center, right, and justified and what effects this has.
Also think about drawing vertical lines on the page to see what is lining up.

12. Design choices: proximity
Proximity means closeness in space, or how close elements are placed to each other and what relationships are build as a result of that spacing.

13. Design choices: video Can these terms be useful in time-based media?
Emphasis
Contrast
Color
Organization
Alignment
Proximity

14. Share your texts with each other
What is the rhetorical situation for your text? (audience, purpose, and context)
Describe the strategies used to convey the purpose of the text to the audience?
Can you use any of the terms from today to help talk about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of your text?
Emphasis
Contrast
Color
Organization
Alignment
Proximity

15. FOR WEDNESDAY
Bring the text you are FOR SURE going to use for Assignment #1
Be prepared to do some talking/thinking/writing in class to start generating your paper.