Multimodal And Technological Literacy

By Author: Arsenalo
Total Articles: 115
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Over time and through participation in various fan websites Grace, Cherrychan, and Nanako all developed a notable measure of multimodal and technological proficiency. For example, all three participants now have personal websites, Live journal accounts, or online forums. Multiple modes of meaning-making, such as space, color, image, movement, and sound are all integral components of how these young women design their WebPages to convey their identities and affiliations with certain social and cultural groups. They also use these forms of expression to augment the content of traditional print messages and fan fiction texts. To effectively use such modes of expression, youths must have at least some measure of visual literacy and an understanding of how these multimodal elements can be combined to create meaning.

Through their participation in online spaces, all three focal participants have also developed what is known as technological Breitling Bentley Replica literacy, or the ability to choose appropriate technology for ...
... specific activities and use it in the most effective ways (NCREL, 2003). To be more specific, these young women all alternate between communicating ideas in public writing forums, through e-mail, or via instant messenger depending on the content and goal of their messages. For example, Grace used the public nature of online fan forums to garner widespread support from other fans when the site administrators on FFN banned some of her fictions for violating the terms of service. However, she chose e-mail as the means of contacting site administrators and effectively presenting her arguments for why her fictions were not in violation of the site rules, which ultimately led to the reinstatement of her FFN account. Through these different activities and mediums, Grace presented herself in very different social roles—in the online forums, she was a powerful self-advocate defending her right to freedom of speech; whereas in the e-mails with site administrators, she was a courteous and principled fan who would attempt to balance her own desire for creative expression with the rules of the site.

Also, as discussed previously, all three focal participants maintain several Web spaces. Maintaining these spaces requires at least Breitling Replica Watches some measure of proficiency with different user-interfaces, programming languages, and video and image-editing software, as well as the conventions for designing materials and conveying information in each of these contexts (i.e., conventions for communication in a Live journal community are quite different from those of an online anime forum). Thus, through participation in fan spaces, all three focal participants have developed skills in designing WebPages; using various software programs; creating videos; and manipulating online, multimodal texts to effectively communicate and convey information.