multimodality

Multimodality is the application of multiple literacies within one medium. Multiple literacies or "modes" contribute to an audience's understanding of a composition. Everything from the placement of images to the organization of the content to the method of delivery creates meaning. This is the result of a shift from isolated text being relied on as the primary source of communication, to the image being utilized more frequently in the digital age. Multimodality describes communication practices in terms of the textual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and visual resources used to compose messages. While all communication, literacy, and composing practices are and always have been multimodal, academic and scientific attention to the phenomenon only started gaining momentum in the 1960s. Work by Roland Barthes and others has led to a broad range of disciplinarily distinct approaches. More recently, rhetoric and composition instructors have included multimodality in their coursework. In their position statement on Understanding and Teaching Writing: Guiding Principles, the National Council of Teachers of English states that "'writing' ranges broadly from written language (such as that used in this statement), to graphics, to mathematical notation."

Multimodality is the application of multiple literacies within one medium. Multiple literacies or "modes" contribute to an audience's understanding of a composition. Everything from the placement of images to the organization of the content to the method of delivery creates meaning. This is the result of a shift from isolated text being relied on as the primary source of communication, to the image being utilized more frequently in the digital age. Multimodality describes communication practices in terms of the textual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and visual resources used to compose messages. While all communication, literacy, and composing practices are and always have been multimodal, academic and scientific attention to the phenomenon only started gaining momentum in the 1960s. Work by Roland Barthes and others has led to a broad range of disciplinarily distinct approaches. More recently, rhetoric and composition instructors have included multimodality in their coursework. In their position statement on Understanding and Teaching Writing: Guiding Principles, the National Council of Teachers of English states that "'writing' ranges broadly from written language (such as that used in this statement), to graphics, to mathematical notation." Every text has its own defined audience, and makes rhetorical decisions to improve the audience's reception of that same text. In this same manner, multimodality has evolved to become a sophisticated way to appeal to a text's audience. In 1984, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford provided a framework for discussing audience that included addressed audiences, and invoked, or imagined, audiences. While conversations surrounding audience have continued since 1984, it is important to consider the role of audience (whether addressed or invoked) while engaging in multimodal composing. Relying upon the canons of rhetoric in a different way than before, multimodal texts have the ability to address a larger, yet more focused, intended audience. Multimodality does more than solicit an audience; the effects of multimodality are imbedded in an audience's semiotic, generic and technological understanding. ===Cultural multimodality=== Based on these representations, communities decide through social interaction how modes are commonly understood. In the same way, these assumptions and determinations of the way multimodality functions can actually create new cultural and social identities. For example, Bezemer and Kress define modes as "socially and culturally shaped resource[s] for making meaning." According to Bezemer, "In order for something to 'be a mode,' there needs to be a shared cultural sense within a community of a set of resources and how these can be organized to realize meaning."[ ] Cultures that pull from different or similar resources of knowledge, understanding, and representations will communicate through different or similar modes. Signs, for instance, are visual modes of communication determined by our daily necessities. In her dissertation, Elizabeth J. Fleitz, a PhD in English with Concentration in Rhetoric and Writing from Bowling Green State University, argues that the cookbook, which she describes as inherently multimodal, is an important feminist rhetorical text. According to Fleitz, women were able to form relationships with other women through communicating in socially acceptable literature like cook books; "As long as the woman fulfills her gender role, little attention is paid to the increasing amount of power she gains in both the private and public spheres." Women who would have been committed to staying at home could become published authors, gaining a voice in a phallogocentric society without being viewed as threats. Women revised and adapted different modes of writing to fit their own needs. According to Cinthia Gannett, author of "Gender and the Journal," diary writing, which evolved from men's journal writing, has "integrate[d] and confirm[ed] women's perceptions of domestic, social, and spiritual life, and invoke a sense of self." It is these methods of remediation that characterize women's literature as multimodal. The recipes inside of the cookbooks also qualify as multimodal. Recipes delivered through any medium, whether that be a cookbook or a blog, can be considered multimodal because of the "interaction between body, experience, knowledge, and memory, multimodal literacies" that all relate to one another to create our understanding of the recipe. Recipe exchanging is an opportunity for networking and social interaction. According to Fleitz, "This interaction is undeniably multimodal, as this network "makes do" with alternative forms of communication outside dominant discursive methods, in order to further and promote women's social and political goals." Cookbooks are only a singular example of the capacity of multimodality to build community identities, but they aptly demonstrate the nuanced aspects of multimodality. Multimodality does not just encompasses tangible components, such as text, images, sound etc., but it also draws from experiences, prior knowledge, and cultural understanding. Another change that has occurred due to the shift from the private environment to the public is audience construction. In the privacy of the home, the family generally targets a specific audience: family members or friends. Once the photographs become public, an entirely new audience is addressed. As Pauwels notes, "the audience may be ignored, warned and offered apologies for the trivial content, directly addressed relating to personal stories, or greeted as highly appreciated publics that need to be entertained and invited to provide feedback." ===Multimodal academic writing practises=== In everyday life, multimodal construction and communication of meaning is ubiquitous. However, academic writing has maintained an overwhelming dominance of the linguistic resource up to the present (Blanca, 2015). The need to open the game to other possible forms of writing in the academy lies in the conviction that the semiotic resources used in the processes of academic inquiry and communication have an impact on the findings (Sousanis, 2015), since both processes are linked in the epistemic potential of writing, understood here in multimodal terms. Therefore, the idea is not about "embellishing" academic discourse with illustrative visual resources, but rather about enabling other ways of thinking, new associations; ultimately, new knowledge, arising from the interweaving of various verbal and nonverbal modes. The strategic use of page design, the juxtaposition of text in columns or of text and image, and the use of typography (in type, size, color, etc.) are just a few examples of how the semiotic potential of the genres of academic circulation can be exploited. This is linked to the possibilities of enriching the forms of academic writing by appealing to non-linear textual development in addition to linear, and by tensioning image and text in their infinite possibilities of creating meaning (Mussetta, Siragusa & Vottero, 2020; Lamela Adó & Mussetta, 2020; Mussetta, Lamela Adó & Peixoto, 2021 ) ===Multimodal fiction=== There is now an increasing number of fictional narratives that explore and graphically exploit the text and the materiality of the book in its traditional format for the construction of meaning: these are what some critics call multimodal novels (Hallet 2009, p. 129; Gibbons 2012b, p. 421, among others), but which also receive the name of visual or hybrid (Luke 2013, p. 21; Reynolds 1998, p. 169; Sadokierski 2010, p. 7). These narratives include a variety of semiotic resources and modes ranging from the strategic use of different typographies and blank spaces, to the inclusion of drawings, photos, maps and diagrams that do not correspond to the usual notion of illustration, but are an indissoluble part of the plot, with specific functions in their contribution of meaning to the work in its multiple combinations (Mussetta 2014; Mussetta, 2017a; Mussetta, 2017b; Mussetta 2017c; Mussetta, 2020 ). ===Communication in business=== In the business sector, multimodality creates opportunities for both internal and external improvements in efficiency. Similar to shifts in education to utilize both textual and visual learning elements, multimodality allows businesses to have better communication. According to Vala Afshar, this transition first started to occur in the 1980s as "technology had become an essential part of business." This level of communication has amplified with the integration of digital media and tools during the 21st century. Internally, businesses use multimodal platforms for analytical and systemic purposes, among others. Through multimodality, a company enhances its productivity as well as creating transparency for management. Improved employee performance from these practices can correlate with ongoing interactive training and intuitive digital tools. Multimodality is used externally to increase customer satisfaction by providing multiple platforms during one interaction. With the popularity of with text, chat and social media during the 21st century, most businesses attempt to promote cross-channel engagement. Businesses aim to increase customer experience and solve any potential issue or inquiry quickly. A company's goal with external multimodality centers around better communication in real-time to make customer service more efficient. ==See also==

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