Evaluating Messages and Images of

Different Text Types

The Power of Words and Images
The Power of Words and Images
Five Key Questions:
1. What is the message?
2. What is the purpose of the message?
3. How is the message conveyed (by the text and/or
image)?
4. Who is the target audience of the message?
5. What other ways of presenting the message are
there?
 Before effectively engaging in multicultural communication,
people have to be ready and knowledgeable for situations such
as the one demonstrated in the illustration.

If anything unplanned or unanticipated comes up, there must be

alternative ways of communicating the same message without
being offensive.

The illustration above sends a relatively vivid and powerful

message not just through the use of a careful juxtaposition of
text and illustration, but also because of the other semiotics or
elements such as color combinations. This is called a multimodal
presentation.
 Multimodality
Multimodality is a fairly new concept in the general academic setting,
but can be a very powerful tool in light of digital and multicultural
communication. A text or output is considered multimodal if it uses two
or more communication modes to make meaning.

It shows different ways of knowledge representations and meaning-

making, and investigates contributions of semiotic resources (language,
gestures, images) that are co-deployed across various modalities (visual,
aural, somatic, etc.). Most importantly, multimodality highlights the
significance of interaction and
integration in constructing a coherent text.
 Multimodality
A multimodal text can either be one of the following:

 Paper (books, comics, posters, brochures)

 Digital (slide presentations, blogs, web pages, social media, animation, film,
video games

 Live (performance or an event)

 Transmedia (A story is told using multiple delivery channels through a

combination of platforms, such as comics, film, and video games all working as
part of the same story with the same message.)
 The creation of multimodal texts and outputs
requires a creative design concept that
orchestrates the purposive combination of text,
color, photo, sound, spatial design, language,
gestures, animations and other semiotics, all with
the unitary goal of bringing meaning to life.
The following are examples of posters that
showcase good multimodality.
The following are examples of posters that
showcase good multimodality.
 In creating a multimodal text, the Purpose, Audience, Context must all be
considered.

• As to purpose, the creator of the text must be clear on the message

and the reason(s) why the message has to be delivered.
• As to audience, the nature, interests and sensitivities of the target
audience must be considered so the text will not be offensive and
hurt people’s sensibilities.
• As to context, the message should be clearly delivered through
various semiotic resources, and in consideration of the various
situations where and how the text will be read by different people
having different cultural backgrounds.