Are "New News" New?

News publishing has been around for the longest time. Now, instead of tangible newspapers – more people are gradually shifting to online publications. There has been an evolution of change for online publications too, as they used to be published on a website where readers would have to access manually. Lately, they have shifted to the evolution of gadget applications where users are able to access all type of news on the go.

Multimodality is introduced by Kress, V.L (1996) as an interaction of speech, visuals and sound. It is heavily considered in information conveyance as visual integration allows readers to digest information with a more accurate understanding. Words and images frequently come together to create the better approach to a publishing.

With information being published online, extra materials like videos and recordings can be embedded along with the information. Such features enable users to visualize and relate better, at a convenient state. Hence, these smartphone applications are dominating the general favor of the public.

Following would be affordances that express the varied possibilities of how multimodal modes are being executed and understood. Norman, D (1988) has explained ‘affordance’ as the understanding of a piece of information, stating that is it heavily culturally affected. For example, highlighted texts may be perceived as being an important portion of a text body to a scholar. However, a piece of highlighted text may just seem like another coloring activity by a 4 year old. With the existence of smartphone applications to access information online, the extra embedded links and messages that come along ensures an afforance to the receipent of information.

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REFERENCES

Kress, G.R. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading Images: the grammar of graphic design. London: Routledge

Norman, D. 1988. The Design of Everyday Things. NewYork: Doubleday.