top of page

Reading Reflection # 4:  Gunther Kress Chapters 3 & 4:

  • Writer: Elizabeth Witmer
    Elizabeth Witmer
  • Jul 4, 2016
  • 3 min read

Continuing my reading of Gunther Kress’ Literacy in the New Media Age, I came to chapter three “Going into a Different World.” Here Kress argues that the profound changes that have taken place in the past few decades are not just of a technological kind, but rather a social revolution. The shift in both the production and reception of messages in our public domain offers a shift in power and social structures. This made me thinks of the shifts we have seen in campaigning for presidential election, in the past few years, and how that has influenced voters. Ray K. Green wrote an article published in the the Huffington Post title, The Game Changer: Social Media and the 2016 Presidential Election, speaking of how essential Obama’s use of social media was in his presidential campaign.

“One study published in 2012 found that Facebook feeds have a significant impact on voting patterns. The findings indicate that certain messages increased turnout directly and indirectly by a total of 340,000 votes." Throughout this chapter, Kress calls for a broader understanding of literacy, point out that each resource, or mode, “ requires distinct competencies in their use and in their design, no matter whether on the page or on the screen” ( 23). Speaking to this, it is important we look at campaign strategies use the information on social media to better understand where they stand in the race. Let's get vertical - how presidential campaigns use data and social media to microtarget voters. Clearly, our understand of literacy has shifted, if power structures are learning to read the tweets and hashtags of our voters. This points to Kress’ point that new technologies of information and communication are remaking our understanding of language, and he aims to “speculate about the new set of relations, and the consequent changes to speech, to writing, and above all, of course, to the notion of ‘literacy’” ( 34).

In chapter 4, “Literacy and multimodality: A Theoretical Framework,” Kress further breaks down how we go about understanding and seeing that ‘language’ is not the sole means of communication. “The world of communication is now constituted in ways that make it imperative to highlight the concept of design, rather than of concepts such as acquisition, or competences or critique” ( 37). This got me thinking about Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Her text points out how society has continued to offer more outlets for extroverts, and in many ways devalued the essential strength of introverts.

The New York Times article, “The Rise of the New Groupthinks,” shows how companies and schools continue to rely on group work models, which is risking the potential of collaboration killing the creativity only solitude can offer many individuals. The article quotes Picasso with, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” Fortunately, some companies have became more aware of the need for many of their employees to work in allientation to produce their best work. Such employers have offered individual's opportunity to work from home, or held ‘virtual meetings’ in place of typically face-to-face meetings, which often breaks up production and creative thought. Such companies have found their employee's work productive especially when imagining something new or troubleshooting a consistent problem. I connect this to Kress’ point, which encourages us to think about ‘the design’ of communication in the modern age, and contemplate which modes serves the intended purpose. Clearly if you have a team of creative, quiet observers, allowing time for them to be imaginative is essential, making virtual meetings a valuable design for communication in such places.


 
 
 

Comments


The Science & 

Mathematics University

© 2023 by Scientist Personal. Proudly created with Wix.com

  • Facebook Clean Grey
  • Twitter Clean Grey
  • LinkedIn Clean Grey
bottom of page