Entry 1

                I don’t have an understanding of “multimodal” as Lauer outlines in her essay. I do, however, have the experience of being on the student end of it—being required to incorporate non-writtten elements (usually visual in some form or another) into an essay project or oral report. Given this, I am more familiar with the concept of multimodality in the way Selfe says she describes it to people like her in-laws: as a podcast, vlog, etc., rather than a form of multimodality. These individual elements are how I think of non-alphabetic text: separate, categorized by their function or features (such as a podcast or a vlog), and not necessarily belonging to a larger concept, other than perhaps “media”, too general a term to apply very seriously. However, after reading Lauer’s essay, I am already beginning to rethink non-alphabetic text, although without any concrete definition to replace my loose one yet.

                One of the aspects I am most interested in that Lauer describes is using many different medias, some of which she either did not have the resources to integrate on her own (even though she felt they were necessary to achieve the goal of the article), others of which she lacked complete control over, despite her position as author (described in Part I under “A Technological Journey”). Given the scope of what the article necessitated, as well as Lauer’s ability/inability to provide it, I began to imagine that multimodality would, by its very nature, have to be cross-disciplinary, and therefore expand its conversations and ideas across subject lines. For instance, the computer science needed to create the final product could bring Lauer’s scholarship into that field, and a cross-pollination of sorts could begin, with ideas that were perhaps foreign to Lauer and her colleagues being introduced to them. Likewise, their ideas could inform scholarship in Computer Science, opening a dialogue between disciplines that may have not previously communicated, or even seen bridges to do so.

                At the same time, however, I am left wondering if the potential to reach new (especially new non-academic) audiences and contributors falls short because the technology involved requires such a specific (educated) skill set, and the tools necessary to learn and practice these skills are most readily available to certain groups with the financial means to access them. I hope to find out if instances of non-technological multimodality (like the example of the ballet shoes essay Kristin briefly mentioned in class on Tuesday, and the maps Wysocki describes and includes some examples of) are as common, or taken as seriously in the scholarship of multimodality, as computer and technology based forms.  

                I imagine these are some of the foundational questions and curiosities of multimodality, but I am personally at that stage with my understanding of multimodality both as a term and as a field. These are some of the questions I’ll most likely grapple with as we move through the readings and class discussions, and I’m curious to see how they might be answered (or forgotten) as the semester progresses.