Now that you have a further understanding of the five modes of communication and how they work individually and in combination, how can you apply them into your writing? Multimodal composition begins where any other composition does: with the rhetorical situation, or the circumstance of communication in which one person (the composer) uses communication to influence the perspective of another (the audience). All multimodal compositions are created for a specific time and place and a particular audience who views the world in an explicit and culturally influenced way. As a writer, you make choices based on the rhetorical situation: context, audience, purpose, genre, and culture. You consider the strengths and weaknesses of all the possible means and tools available for reaching your rhetorical goals. By identifying the audience, determining what you need to tell the audience, and analyzing the best way to do that (including which types of media to use), you are empowered to create an effective and targeted composition.
As the writer, you’ll need to determine which modes could add value to your work. Be careful not to add modes just because you think you should. Each mode you use should add meaning to the text. Consider the opportunities, challenges, and constraints of any writing task and assess and revise your work to meet the needs of the audience.
Some questions you may want to consider:
Does the rhetorical situation call for a certain mode? Or, do you have some creative freedom in how you present your ideas or make your argument?
How does a certain mode affect the way your audience will receive or experience the message? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a certain mode for this particular writing task?
Could you use a combination of modes? Would a multi-modal approach enhance your message or help you to better get your point(s) across?
Do you possess the technological skills necessary to effectively use a specific mode? Will you need to learn additional skills in order to create your work? If so, how can you best learn these skills in the given time frame?
In conclusion, modality affects how the audience will interact with and generate meaning from your work. Writing in the five modes can help you to think “outside the box” as you make rhetorical decisions about the kinds of communication that you could use as you venture beyond the printed word.
Taking a stance on what you’ve learned and communicating that to an academic audience is one of the most common experiences that college students (and instructors!) share. However, the ways in which you can be rhetorically effective depend on understanding who your audience is as a cohesive group of people with shared experiences, knowledge, or opinions about your topic. As with any type of composition, knowing your audience (the readers and viewers for whom you are creating) will help you determine what information to include and what genre, mode(s), or media in which to present it. Consider your audience when choosing a composition’s tone (composer’s attitude toward the audience or subject), substance, and language. Considering the audience is critical not only in traditional academic writing but also in nearly any genre or mode you choose.
Understanding your audience allows you to choose rhetorical devices that reflect ethos (appeals to ethics: credibility), logos (appeals to logic: reason), and pathos (appeals to sympathy: emotion) to create contextually responsive compositions through multiple modes.
Your purpose for this assignment is to make an argument that is relevant and exigent to your audience. There are many issues and problems happening all around the world that we should care about, so how can you make your audience understand your issue and agree that they should give it priority?
Exigency: urgent, a situation needing immediate attention or action
Here are some questions you should consider when trying to decide how and why your audience should care about your issue.
How are they affected by your issue? If your audience is impacted negatively or positively, that will tell you a lot about their attitude towards it. Is this something that affects their lives every day, or something that they just think about every now and then?
If they aren’t directly affected, then who is? For example, if your topic is online or distance learning and your audience is parents, perhaps their main connection is the impact on their school-aged children. Your audience doesn’t have to be directly impacted in negative or positive ways, but they still care about your issue for some reason.
What are their opinions about your topic? Understanding your audience’s opinions about your issue will help you decide how to talk about it. Remember, your purpose is NOT to persuade them to think differently about the issue; your purpose is to make them understand its exigency.
What do they know about it? As you’ve likely read in your sources so far this semester, authors tend to give their audience a bit of context for understanding a topic. If the audience are experts in the topic, they won’t need as much context. If the audience has never heard of the topic, then they will need a lot more context explained to them before you can convince them to care about its exigency.
Do they have any control over the issue? This helps you understand your audience’s stake in the issue, or what they could potentially gain or lose.
Adapted from:
"Multimodal Argument" by Leslie Davis and Kiley Miller. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
"Multi-Modal Communication: Writing in Five Modes." Authored by: Ann Fillmore. Provided by SLCC English Department, Open English @ SLCC Copyright © 2016 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).