Analysis of communicative elements is more important as media becomes more multi-media
Today's literature is more compex, than in previous years, with more communicative elements in each literary piece. Historically, a piece of literature was either text, pictures, or a combination with a fairly simple story that had limited characters and straight forward plot. Today, media often includes pictures, illustrations, animations, art, music, live actors, dancers, and text with complicated plots and characters. Often with stories told in a series through books, graphic novels, e-books, multimedia, internet sites, videos, dance, drama, music and musicals, theatrical productions, concerts, and other creative combinations of these.
Literary pieces created by teams of people where each develop a piece of media that is put together to provide a multimedia, multisensory experience. The credits at the end of a movie suggest how intensely comprehensive these productions can be. With list of artists that specialize as characters, animators, producers, set designers, special effects, make-up, choreography, directors, drama coaches, artists, musicians, dancers, visual designers, text production artists, who put together literature in a video format.
If we are to be an informed society and 90% of our information comes from sources, other than print, then schools must make sure their curriculums are more broadly defined to include multimedia. Media beyond reading and writing. To prepare citizens who are able to make good decisions in a democratic society they must be able to fully comprehend a vast variety of media.
Identification of different elements and their messages need to analized and comprehended to attain the full benefit of the artists' intentions. The chart below is one example of how to analyze different forms of media within multimedia or other pieces of literature.
Select a piece of literature and see if the ideas assist your thinking about literature in ways that you haven't previously in a more comprehensive manner.
| Ways to represent ideas in different media or genre or ... | Elements of communication What ways are the elements being used to communicate? |
Creator Who sends a message? |
Message What message or purpose is being sent? |
Medium How does the media effect the messages being sent? |
Audience To Whom is the message being sent? |
Setting When, where, & in what context is the message being sent from and to where? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Media - book Text Genre - fiction |
Inquiry - How are ideas being created and responded to? Language - What is the symbolic form of communication? Poetry or Aesthetic What is communicated conceptual, stylistically, in different tones or voices for particular purposes to the audience Story Information (apply inquiry and language to create a piece with special conceptual and stylistic elements for a particular purpose and audience) |
|||||
Media - art Picture Genre - fiction or non fiction |
Inquiry - how ideas are created and responded to Languaging - symbolic form of of communication Poetry or Aesthetic (apply inquiry and language to create a piece with special conceptual and stylistic elements for a particular purpose and audience) Story (apply inquiry and language to create a piece with special conceptual and stylistic elements for a particular purpose and audience) Information (apply inquiry and language to create a piece with special conceptual and stylistic elements for a particular purpose and audience) |
Adapted from: Piazza, Carolyn L. (1999). Multiple forms of literacy: Teaching literacy and the arts. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill. Table 1-1 page 5