I believe that the purpose of this type of multimodal website is that it is meant to appeal to certain tropes that Jimmie Killingsworth discusses in his article “Appeal Through Tropes.” In his article Killingsworth discusses the concept of a trope and how it is used to help a writer better connect with his or her audience through four methods, identification, association, representation and closing distance. Daniel’s project implements these tropes in an effort to communicate with his audience on a level that is more than just skin deep. By quoting material and arranging it in a manor that highlights more important words (writing out quotes but making some words physically bigger [I can’t remember what this is called… a word something…]) such as, “Life,” Daniel implements Killingsworth’s idea of having words build on each other to build meaning. “Modern theorists of rhetoric responded by insisting that rhetorical language, including the use of tropes, is pervasive and unavoidable. All forms of knowledge and even conventional uses of language are build upon an original foundation of wordplay and figuration.” This construction of language helps to build meaning and make Daniel’s work have a more profound impact on his audience.
The medium that Daniel’s chose when creating his digital archive is interesting because it helps to appeal to a wider range of audience members. The “voice only” (only audio, no video) method of presenting each character and seemed to have some metaphorical meaning. The simple voice recordings tended to cause the viewer to disassociate themselves from the inmates telling their story, very appropriate when compared to the security and self sustaining jail which is unconnected from the outside world. Further supporting this example is the way the gloomy color scheme of the site. Daniel’s site had a dark, depressing color choice where as the computer and world we are viewing the site from is quite the opposite, cheerful and colorful. This color contrast makes the gap between the digital archive and our world even more apparent.
The cross comparison between Killingsworth’s work and Daniel’s web page makes complete sense. Daniel’s electronic archive did a great job implementing different tropes in an effort to communicate to his audience in a unique way. His methods of implementation cause me to look at multimodal texts in a new perspective causing me to ask myself, does this have a bigger meaning?
Works Cited
Daniel, Sharon. “Public Secrets.” Vectors 2.2 (Winter 2007): n. pag. Web. http://www.vectorsjournal.org/projects/index.php?project=57
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. “Appeal Through Tropes.” Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary- Language Approach. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005. 121-135.
You and I wrote on the same topic more or less. So I was really drawn to your piece when I read it. I also need more in text citations but that is just filler at this point.
ReplyDeleteIn my piece I talked about the audio recordings a little more. Like what other functions do they serve. Well yes, the snips were hand chosen so there is that aspect of it. But think more about why did Daniel choose to use audio instead of video. What can you get, our not get from using audio over video. Think about that... I thought it was clever because the audience could more easily disassociate the voice with jail, than if it were a video with visual cues. But there has to be more than that...
Also, one classmate talked about rhetorical velocity in their post. I think if either of us was going to turn our posts into something more, we would need to incorporate something like that into our essays. That post was pretty cool, I would check it out. We both should as well go into more in regards to Killingsworth. That is something I'm slacking on for sure.
Well done Austin!
ReplyDeleteBut I'm surprised you didn't mention heteroglossia in association with “Public Secrets”. I mean, where would Daniel be without the content from the people who've actually experienced the system? Their voices and Daniel's induce a connection with the audience- which you've touched on. I like how you've taken a step back and examined both work from the multimedia perspective; bold move. Would have liked to have seen you go in depth of the exact tools and the execution of those tools a little bit more. Nevertheless, you've done a wonder job with simply examining everything; even down to colors of the website.