Multi-Media Library
The Multimedia Texts demanded attention and pariticipation, synthesis and imagination, in a non-linear way to essentially be classified as an interactive, engaged text (Sego, 1971, p. 56-57)
McLuhan (1967) affirms the role of media: communities at large have been formed more by the media or mediums by which people communicate with than the the material of the communication itself. Therefore when children learn the alphabet, they are taught to learn through a print based system, a process of "specialism and detachment" in which a splintering occurs among the unity between learning and electronic involvement (p.8).
McLuhan suggests that the forces that guide media’s influence are strong and persuasive, and that if both young and old can exercise a control and understanding of such influence, there will be a “reasonable ecology” between society and media once the effects and forms of media are taught and people are brought to an “awareness of the nature of operation” (McLuhan, 2016, Section 3)
McLuhan says The Medium is the Massage is "a collide-oscope of interfaced situations" (p.12)
With technology and forms of media, human communicties both physical and digital can be configured in artistic ways, which can bring teaching to its full potential, turning basic perception into discovery (p. 68)
...in order to understand invisible forces behind media people must be aware and taught those effects and methods (McLuhan, 2016, section 3)
Synectics: "A process of Generating Creativity where the familiar is made strange and the strange familiar" (Sego, 1971, p.54).
(COINCIDENCE OR DESIGN, AGAIN)
Shipka states, multimodal texts and teaching strategies may seem uncomfortable and inconceivable at first, instructors must work to make such strange and new situations seem less so, reversing the known with the unknown in educational settings (p.134).
The 70's Multi-Media Revolution:
William Sparke and Clark McKowen's Montage: Investigations in Language.
When a Student confronts Sparke and McKowen's text they are immediately greeted by the title in neon green and pink lettering. Proceeding further will reveal strange, juxtaposed images, reversed lettering, upside down text and a general sense of chaos (Sego, 1971, p.55).
Sparke and McKowen: "Words are things and living things too" (p.20)
"All language is metaphor; I use my statements, not as facts but as probes; The Medium is the Message" (p.43).
"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness" (p. 83).
Palmeri (2012) adds that the power of juxtaposing images and language for students can act as a “strategy for reseeing and reimagining the world in which they live in” (p.111).
Peter Hasselriis of states in his article, Montage is a book that is eye catching and yet a reader is multi-tasking, reading, looking at something, thinking and because nothing is too lengthy, reflecting and reviewing the material is unavoidable so more time is spent and ultimately the text "invites you in and keeps you there" (p.94)
Palmeri inserts about the Spark and McKowen text that it seeks to elevate students' receptivity and understanding of the rhetorical aspects of font types, color, images to promote creative thinking; students can look at fragments from diverse pages, to arrive at new compositions (101).
Lewis Page Sego offers the structure is captivating but the material is not as important as the effect and what if forces the reader to do: It changes itself and forces the reader to change with it (p.55).
Thompson and Bordwell’s (2010) definition of “intellectual montage,” and the relationship between images, comics are referred to as: “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence” (McCloud, 1993, p. 9).
McCloud later refers to the medium of comics and the paneled page as “pictures in sequence” which are identified as exceptional methods to create meaning and establish communication but in traditional studies take different forms (McCloud, 1993, p.20). These forms come as diagrams, outlines, or mimetic instructions (student see, student do) used to describe traditional sequences, but perhaps comics are the key to engaging creative diagramming and outlining which can be better understood.
The panel’s character states that a person’s role in an environment is based on the mediums created and that depending on how thoughts and actions are presented, television and media are bringing action and communal interaction closer to possibility (McLuhan, 1967, p.157). The panel concludes with a strange statement that takes an anachronism and transforms it into a metaphor for the electronic, digital age: “We again live in a village. Get it?” (McLuhan, 1967, p. 157). McLuhan’s idea, as well as montage theory, creates an interesting social dynamic: the idea of society existing within a digital village, where ideas are now integrated and shared instantaneously through technology.
In G. S. Morris’ article (2015) on the composition pedagogy present within comic paneling, he validates this legitimacy: “because of their multimodal nature, comics dictate a critical distance, whether in response to their visual distortion of reality, their collision of words and images, their potential openness in reading, or their static rendering of temporal experience” (p. 38).
However, one text that acts as a gateway between the literary world of print, and the online world of hypertext is Hayles (2002), Writing Machines. Upon first glance this book is more text heavy than other examples but the design and overall effect of this text relies on a font and style which appears as futuristic, computer based writing. Turning from page to page often reveals instances where the font is magnified, achieving in print, the effect of a zoom-in or magnification feature found in word processors online.
Hayles discusses that hypertexts consist of three main factors: “Multiple reading paths, Chunked text, and some kind of linking mechanism,” and that because hypertexts suggest the idea of multiple pathways, both print and electronic texts can be considered hypertext, such as how encyclopedias, whether in print or online, are constructed through “a system of cross-references that serve as linking mechanisms” (p.26).
Hayles describes the text as a procedure using a lexicon and pedagogical practice to accumulate the factors and approaches within both print and electronic texts and bringing them into a physical form of representation (Hayles, 2002, p. 6).
Ultimately, Hayles says that through learning the techniques that inscription technologies utilize, all of the writing machines available to us have a way of linking the reader to the interfaces in which an author composes (2002, p. 131).