Blog Post 6

As defined by Kress, Multimodality is a form of communication that encompasses multiple modes that, when arranged together, effectively communicates to an intended audience.  Modes are defined as mediums through which communication is fostered.  Kress gave three broad generalizations of modes when he was analyzing the BBC website.  The first mode being that something is “in time”, where when you click on a video or a moving picture and speech is involved with the moving image.  Both speech and the moving image change concurrent to time.  The second broad generalized mode is that which is “not in time”.  “Not in time”, in the example of the BBC website, are the bits of writing found adjacent to the moving image and provide their own method of communication.  The last broad generalized mode is “spatial”.  “Spatial”, keeping up with the on going example, are the still images that we see.  Kress then goes on to explain that these modes are arranged in way to interest him as the arranger and best exemplifies the information he wants the audience to understand.  The tension between Kress and Wysocki’s view of multimodality is that Kress believes that multimodality is an arranged work of modes that are functional specialized.  The coherence of Multimodality can be easily disrupted if one mode tries to communicate the same as another mode.  However, Wysocki believes that Multimodality is a combination of modes and can effectively describe anything if put into the right prospective.  Wysocki denounces Kress’ claims of functional specialization and states that we cant be bound natural materials such as resources to time and space so we cannot bound logic and rhetoric either.