9.2 Designing Your Multimodal Remediation
Jackie Hendricks; Amy Lueck; Loring Pfeiffer; and Maura Tarnoff
The Right Approach for your Audience
The audience is one of the most important elements of the remediation process, because the creator of the medium must consider how their work will be understood and interpreted. Let’s go back to the example of Johnny Got His Gun. When it was published in 1939, Trumbo knew that Americans were hoping to avoid having to enter World War II and that people would respond well to a book portraying the horrors of war at its worst (incidentally, that sentiment backfired on him after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, after which his book went through a period of great unpopularity). The film adaptation was not made until 1971, when anti-war sentiments towards Vietnam were at their height and younger filmgoers were once again open to the message Trumbo (who also directed the film) had originally tried to convey. By the time the late 1980s rolled around and Metallica recorded its version, much of the controversy around the book and the film had died down, and so the group was able to write a song that spoke to the horror of being imprisoned inside your own body without the baggage of pro or anti-war sentiments.
Regardless of what kind of remediation you are taking on, whether it’s artistic, academic, or business-related, it is vital to understand how the remediation process works. Once you know how to distill the most important ideas from the original text and transfer them in a way that gives them new meaning without misrepresenting the original, you’ll be far more successful in conveying important ideas to your audience. This also helps you understand how important the way you present your information is.
Let’s consider the audience with respect to a text-to-text remediation. In this case, we need to think about the possible audiences of both the original text and the remediation. Subtle changes in the delivery method of text—poem, newspaper article, social media post—will appeal to very different audiences. This point is very important and plays a major role in the creation of your remediation. An understanding of the characteristics of your audience will help you to identify the tone, word choice, and voice you’ll adopt as you remediate the text.
An example might make this point clearer: let’s say you remediate a newspaper article about gun control into a series of posts on X. You, as a sharp and engaged student, realize these two text-based media have decidedly different target audiences: a newspaper article has an older, perhaps less technologically savvy audience, while X is aimed at a younger, more technologically comfortable audience. This difference in target audience must play a large role in your rhetorical stance—word choice, phrasing, and voice—so you choose to adopt in your remediation.
Newspaper article phrase:
- “The decline of the quality of some high schools has people concerned.”
Twitter post:
- “High School = brain death + pep rallies?”
You might notice the differences in rhetorical approaches between these two text phrases (different word choice, tone, etc.); however, the fundamental idea or message has remained largely unchanged. Moreover, the likely audience for an X post is altogether different than that of a newspaper article. The rhetorical stance used in the post, of course, reflects this difference.
We instinctively know how to speak or write in vastly different ways when addressing various audiences; you would, for example, hardly address your first-year composition instructor in the same way you would your roommate. Something similar is at work when you compose your remediation: you need to identify the expected audience for your remediation and allow your audience’s expectations to dictate the way you go about creating the new version of the text.
The Five Modes of Communication
Melanie Gagich offers the following explanation of the different modes of communication in her chapter “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing [Website]” from The Ask: A More Beautiful Question [Website], 2nd ed.:
While the text-to-text example works well for thinking about remediating your project for different audiences in the same mode, you also want to think about multimodal options to successfully engage your audience. In the mid-1990s, a group of scholars gathered in New London, New Hampshire and, based on their discussions, wrote the influential article, “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures,” published in 1996. In it, the group advocated for teachers to embrace teaching practices that allow students to draw from five socially and culturally situated modes, or “way[s] of communicating” (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball 1). These modes were linguistic, visual, spatial, gestural, and aural. Yet, scholars such as Claire Lauer, another influential researcher in composition, have argued that the New London Group’s definition of modes, while exceedingly important, can be difficult to grasp. In light of this, here are brief definitions of these modes:
Apply It
As you reflect on your audience and its needs, what mode or modes will work best for sharing your research? What mode(s) will your audience find most persuasive? What mode(s) will inspire your audience to take action?
Creating a Multimodal Text
We can continue exploring Melanie Gagich’s chapter “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing [Website]” from The Ask: A More Beautiful Question [Website], 2nd ed., to think about how to create a multimodal text:
Creating a multimodal text, where you remediate your original text-based research essay into something that communicates through multiple modes, requires taking several steps to determine the multimedia form that works best for you. In this section, we will take you through the steps to select the most suitable form of multimedia for your project and audience, and provide guidance on designing your final deliverable. As with writing, multimodal composing is a process and should not only emphasize the final result. Therefore, the first three strategies listed below are pre-drafting activities.
- Determine your rhetorical situation.
- Review and analyze other multimodal texts.
- Gather content, media, and tools.
- Cite and attribute information appropriately.
- Begin drafting your text.
Determine Your Rhetorical Situation
When brainstorming your rhetorical situation, you should consider the purpose of your text (the message), who you want to read and interact with your text (the audience, your relationship to the message and audience (the author), the type of text you want to create (the genre), and where you want to distribute it (the medium).
The Message
The message relates to your purpose, and you might ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish?” You should try to make the message as clear and specific as possible. Let’s say you want to create a website focused on donating to charity. An unclear message might be “getting more people in the United States to donate to charities.” A clearer message is “convincing college freshmen at my university to donate to the ASPCA” because the audience and purpose are specific rather than broad.
The Audience
There are two types of audiences. The intended audience that you target in your message (as discussed in the previous sections), and the unintentional audience that may stumble upon your text. When determining your message, consider the beliefs, values, and demographics of your intended audience, as well as the likelihood that unintended audiences will interact with your text. Using the example above, college freshmen at your university are the intended audience, and teachers, parents, and/or students from other universities represent the unintentional audience members.
The Author
You are the author and should consider your relationship to the message and audience. As an author, you bring explicit (obvious) and/or implicit (not obvious) biases to your message, so it is important to recognize how these might affect it and your audience. Also, you may be targeting an audience you are familiar with (perhaps you are also a college freshman) or not (perhaps you are a graduate student). It is essential to consider how your familiarity might impact your message.
The Genre
Genre is a complex term that can have different meanings for various scholars, teachers, and students (Dirk 250). In the context of multimodal composing, genre refers to a type of text that has genre conventions or audience expectations. For example, if I am creating a website (the genre), an audience would expect the following conventions: an easy-to-navigate toolbar, functional tabs, hyperlinks, and images. Yet, when thinking about genre, it is more useful to think specifically. If I am creating a website for horror film fans (the specific genre), then the audience would expect the following (more specific) genre conventions: references, images, and sounds associated with horror films, directors, actors, actresses, monsters, and villains. They would also expect color and font choices to align with the genre—it is likely that the color baby blue would not be well-received.
The Medium
While genre is the type of text you want to create, the medium refers to where you will distribute it. Classic media (plural for medium) includes distribution via radio, newspapers, magazines, and television; however, new media is defined by a text’s online distribution. Importantly, medium refers to where you will distribute your text, but not how. The how refers to the technology tools you’ll use to create the text and possibly to distribute it. For example, to create a podcast, you might use your smartphone (a tool) to record, a free sound editor like Audacity (another tool) to edit it, and Soundcloud (a tool and the medium) to distribute it.
Review and Analyze Other Multimodal Texts
Now that you have brainstormed your rhetorical situation and determined the type of text you want to create, it is time to begin finding other texts representative of your topic and genre. In their textbook, Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects, Arola, Sheppard, and Ball argue that “[o]ne of the best ways to begin thinking about a multimodal project is to see what has already been said about a topic you are interested in . . . as well as how other authors have designed their texts on that topic . . . ” (40). This is excellent advice. I suggest that you find at least one text you think is an exceptional example and one text you feel is lacking in some way. After you find these texts, you can conduct a brief analysis by responding to the following questions:
- What is the author’s message?
- Who are they addressing? How can you tell?
- What type of text did they create? What genre conventions do you see?
- How was the text distributed? In what ways does it relate to the target audience?
- What modes of communication are they using? Which are they emphasizing? Do these decisions support the message and/or appropriately target their audience?
- What do you like about the multimodal text?
- What, in your opinion, needs work?
If you answer these questions, you have given yourself important feedback to consider for your own work.
Gather Content, Media, and Tools
Once you have determined your rhetorical situation and examined other multimodal texts, you should begin gathering information and materials. I have categorized this process into three components: content, visual and aural materials, and technology tools.
Collect Content
Draw from the research you have already done on your project to create the content needed to support your message.
Collect Visual and Aural Materials
In addition to textual information, you should also collect other assets, like images, sounds, videos, animations, or memes that you want to include in your multimodal text.
Explore Openly Licensed Materials
When searching for visual and aural materials, consider using openly licensed materials. According to Yearofopen.org, open licenses are “a set of conditions applied to an original work that grant permission for anyone to make use of that work as long as they follow the conditions of the license” (“What are Open Licenses”). A well-known and commonly used example of an open license is Creative Commons licenses, identified by CC. Creative Commons licenses provide the creator or author with a copyright, ensuring that they receive credit for their work, while also allowing “others to copy, distribute, and make uses of their work – at least non-commercially” (“About the Licenses”). Essentially, if a work has one of the four basic Creative Commons licenses, then a creator/ author can use the licensed item in their own creative texts.
There are various websites, such as CC Search, Free Music Archive (FMA), or Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), where you can find openly licensed work. You may also set filters on Flickr or Google Images to locate openly licensed work.
Collect and Evaluate Technology Tools
It is important to collect and evaluate the technology tools you need to create (and possibly distribute) your multimodal text prior to drafting it. The easiest way to determine the technology tools that you need is to create a list of all of the features you want to include in your text. Once you create the list, research where to find the tools, either online or at SCU [Website]. Be aware that some tools may not be free (although they may come with a free trial period). Or you can find freeware, software available for free online, such as Audacity (for sound editing), Canva [Website] (for infographic and/or image creation), or Blender [Website] (for video creation and animation). Once you have created your list and found some tools, spend some time testing each one while keeping track of which is the most user-friendly and helps you achieve your composing goals.
Citing and Attributing Your Content
After researching content and collecting materials, think about how you will give rhetorically appropriate credit to authors or organizations whose work you have referenced or included. For instance, if you create a video, you should provide credits at the end rather than a Works Cited page, or if you design a website, you should include hyperlinks to outside sources rather than MLA in-text citations, as this approach is more suitable for the genre. For multimodal texts that rely on the aural mode (e.g., podcasts), you can use verbal attributions or verbalize necessary information. When deciding what information is necessary, consider what details you can include to help your audience locate your text, such as the author, title, and website. For example, the phrase, “According to Mandi Goodsett, in her PowerPoint ‘Creative Commons Licenses’ found on the library website, a student has control over their online presence,” offers the audience key information to help them find the source.
When citing openly licensed images, videos, sounds, animations, screenshots, and other media, it is essential to provide attribution. According to the Creative Commons Wiki [Website], an appropriate attribution should include the title, author, source (hyperlinked to the original website), and license (hyperlinked to the license information).
Begin Drafting Your Text
Drafting your text should include outlining or mapping your project. This could take the form of writing all the text you want to include in an outline, if you have a word-heavy multimodal text like a website; drawing your design if you are creating a poster or commercial; or writing a script if you are creating a podcast or video. Of course, you can combine any of these outlining methods or come up with your own, but thinking about what you want to do before you do it will make your final text much stronger and coherent.
Apply It: Multimodal Possibilities
Take a moment to review SCU’s repository of Examples of Successful Multimodal Student Work [Website]. Pick 2-3 projects and respond to the prompts below, taking note of any ideas they inspire for your project.
Attribution
“Designing Your Multimodal Remediation” by Jackie Hendricks, Amy Lueck, Loring Pfeiffer, and Maura Tarnoff is adapted from “Turning Your Paper into an Oral Presentation” by Elizabeth Burrows, Angela Fowler, Heath Fowler, and Amy Locklear, used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. “Designing Your Multimodal Remediation” is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Media Attributions
- DIG14487jjg-050 © LBJ Library is licensed under a Public Domain license
- Book and Computer © Dflexo23 is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
