Gunther Kress

An okay intermediate-level manual of the semiotics of visuals and visual design. Imperfect, and full of a lot of what most people would call "theory gibberish." The most common punctuation is not a period or question, but quotes. A misuse of quotes, actually, in the attempt create categories. There's a lot to be said about examining images and determining whether they have an argument or whether their arguments are successful. There's value in determining whether visuals have prejudice in show more favor of dominant classes/castes. What strikes me about Kress and van Leeuwan is that they have useful ideas, but are borderline on clarity. For a student, it's somewhat appropriate. For someone outside academia or without any familiarity in semiotics, it might be puzzling and a snoozefest. Then again, it's a snoozefest for those with a working understanding of semiotics, too. show less

In Literacy in the New Media Age (2003), Gunther Kress argues that we need to understand literacy differently now that the image dominates communication instead of writing, and that the screen has come to dominate instead of the page (1). Writing is now more frequently on the screen, where it is "subject to the logic of the image" (10), and this logic of the image and screen have now carried over to print material as well (#). (Important note: Kress wants to keep literacy, as a term, limited show more to concerning alphabetic writing, so as to not water it down and keep the term robust [23:]). Kress takes a semiotic approach, understanding communication as meaning-making (36-37). He understands that the logic of the image, which dominates the screen, allows for readers to now understand the screen as a "visual entity" rather than simply words, and that placement of an image with words matters (65). Additionally, entry matters, because on a page, the entry point is clear, but on a screen, there are various entry points (136). An additional difference between the page and screen is that writing is telling the world whereas images and the screen are showing the world (140+).

Kress takes an approach to genre similar to Carolyn Miller's, understanding genre as "a category that orients attention to the social world" (87), "a response to social givens" (98). Now, however, we need to understand genres as not simply literate, but, if we are to understand modern communication, as also (and predominantly) visual (118).

Kress closes with some important agenda points: we need to develop further a theory of multimodal reading (168), that notions of competence, oriented toward the past, will be replaced with design, oriented toward the future (169), and that cognition cannot be separated from affect (171). show less

Classic text on a subject most people aren't familiar with; in short, it's about understanding the hidden meaning or subtext of things in their social contexts.