Oberseve:
The second group’s Prezi, a summary of Chapter 4 in the Bolter text, goes over the relation of visuals with text. In both the “new” digital format and the dating-back-to-the-15th-century “old school” style of print, visuals play a prominent role. Group 2 used the example of a newspaper in correlation to a website; both heavily rely on imagery to convey their stories. The Prezi also goes over symbols and how they function; pictures and imagery are said to be primary whereas words and text are secondary (in a process called ‘ekphrasis’). Examples shown include the desktop icons on a Mac and hieroglyphs in an Egyptian tomb. This Prezi had an attractive soft blue and white background that kinetically moved about the screen from text to pictures. The font was changed up with each new “movement” which helped to visually stimulate the viewers. Like chapter 3, this group wisely kept it brief to not bog down the audience in useless details.
Infer:
The main point of this Prezi is that visuals are our main use of communication, secondary to that of even printed text, which seems to be cause of why the digital medium will most likely replace print as the new “standard.” Although as scholars, we rely heavily on the printed text, visual communication is our most primal communicative property, which makes this digital age of the Internet, Blogs, and personalized web pages seem like the natural “next step.”
Question:
1. With the new digital age, where visuals are more prominent, will society’s collective intelligence wane or will we simply become smarter in different areas than before?
2. Is this “new age” a step backward in terms of communication?
3. Will we ever see a purely visual mode of communication (completely without text?)
4. What about this digital age is more appealing than the print age?
5. What about it is less appealing?
6. Will the unity of text and the visual continue to coexist?
In response to your question 1: This is a very interesting question. I think that we will simply become smarter in different areas than before. Throughout history it is obvious that humans have only become smarter because their knowledge has grown due to the advancement of technology. Visuals can be used in place of words, as we have learned with our visual arguments, so society's intelligence will not decrease!
ReplyDeleteIn response to your question 2: This new age is definitely not a step backwards in terms of communication. Communication has only grown and become more accessible in the new age because it is faster and easier to obtain any information or communicate with others.
In response to your question 3: We will not see a purely visual mode of communication because although visuals can replace words sometimes, they cannot fully eliminate writing. Sometimes words must do what visuals cannot.
In response to your 4th question....I think that the quickness of writing in a digital age is what is most appealing. Instant communication is key in a world where things are happening so fast. Also, writing used to be hard to obtain. Now, documents, books and any type of writing can be accessed instantly on the computer.
ReplyDelete#3 I think text will always exist - visuals can not sustain on their own and vice-versa. Saying print disappearing over the electronic text not existing would be a better prediction . If so, it will be extremely gradual because we have already made major progress but people will still choose the hard cover books to read over a visual representation.
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