blog post 6

Multimodality is the way that someone uses more than one mode to convey a piece of information to someone else. One mode alone won’t communicate the piece of information as effectively as putting together different modes to communicate. I would define modes as ways that information is presented. For example, a webpage, a text message, a spoken dialogue, a video, or a page from a book could all be different modes. However not all of these modes are in space and time together. A video clip or an image is a mode that is in space, it is spatial and it is also temporal. A piece of writing however is not in time according to Kress. Modes are arranged based on the interest of one person in communication with one person. And different modes can do different things. Kress and Wysocki have differing views on multimodality however they do agree on a few topics. For example Wysocki talks about how the spatial relationship of words on a page caused a shift from reading out loud to silent individual reading. Kress had also talked about the spacing of words on a page. Wysocki does however go to say that when Kress says “What are the salient events and in what (temporal) order did they occur?” isn’t wrong but he believes that based even on what little wysocki has written he believes it is still incomplete. Wysocki believes that people need to “consider how they use spaces and not just one time that can be shaped on pages.” Wysocki goes on to claim that Kress’ claims are predictable but to me it is all pretty confusing. I understand the concept of different modes being used to convey information more efficiently depending on the person but I don’t understand how there are these many differences between these two guys in what they are arguing.