Multimodality: The contemporary way to tell your story
What is multimodality and how does it differ from conventional modes of storytelling?
Since the birth of Instagram in 2010, the way in which we engage and use Instagram has completely transformed. We’ve outgrown the square-shaped VSCO edits of Topshop’s 3 for £10 frilly socks; the unfiltered white-a-gram’s capturing last night’s house party; or even the infamous holiday snapshot captioned ‘Hot Dogs or Legs?’ Arguably, what used to be an authentic photo-sharing platform has now become one of the most influential modes of communication.
With 95 million Instagram posts being shared on a daily basis and over a billion users worldwide, Instagram has revolutionized social networking, as well as corporation’s advertisement and marketing strategies. Additional features such as Instagram stories, direct messaging, Instagram reals, and the new marketplace, has seen Instagram incorporate similar features to that of Facebook, Snapchat and Tik Tok — all available to users in one place.
More than this, Instagram is crucial when it comes to storytelling. I recently came across the term multimodality which highlights the multiple ways in which a story can be told, that differ from conventional writing. Gunther Kress breaks down the concept of multimodality into two distinctions:
Mode — The socially and culturally shaped resource for making meaning. Image, writing, layout, speech, moving images are examples of different mode.
Medium — is the substance in which meaning is realised through which it becomes available to others. Mediums include video, image, text, audio, etc.
To summarise his theory, Kress suggests that different modes are essential in telling different stories for different purposes, and that no two modes are capable of portraying the same message in the same way. Moreover, multimodality is a fairly modern-day phenomenon and Instagram plays a significant role when it comes to discussing multimodality within a digital age.
From a journalistic perspective, I’ve restructured the way in which I approach Instagram. By using a variety of infographics designed on Canva, I’ve incorporated multimodality into my journalism Instagram profile .
Prior to this research, I wasn’t aware that colours can be used as a mode of storytelling. In his book, Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication, Kress suggests that colour is used in order to highlight specific aspects of the overall message. Meaning that, colour can subconsciously evoke assumptions which place the message within a wider context, fitting within a universal theme or subject.
When I think of travel writing and journalism, I think of multi-coloured European cities or deserted blue seas. The primary colours associated with the travel industry are supposed to evoke feelings of happiness from its audiences, and the incorporations of green further enforce a sense of wanderlust or natural surroundings. By focusing on the colour green as the primary theme of my Instagram page, I’ve created a sense of coherence which makes sense to the audience. In my opinion, green is the most accurate colour that depicts the theme of my blog, fitting within the wider context of travel journalism as a whole. Having only recently foregrounded my theme, this is something which I plan to implement more prominently in the future.
Taken from ‘15 INSTAGRAM STORY DESIGN TIPS THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND’: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs.
When using text as a mode, it’s important to make it easy to read as a way to ensure usability. Whilst colour assumes a wider contextual framework, the use of language is going to give clear insight into the message being portrayed. In an interview, Kress draws attention to the layout of text, stating that in the West we read left to right and the text is always secondary to the image. As well as this, it’s clear that when engaging with an Instagram story, we read from top to bottom. Bold letters and bold fonts are also most likely to stand out and grab people’s attention first.
The example I’ve included to the left, uses the image as the central focal point and the most important text is located at the top of the page, in the biggest font. This means that the text accurately provides clarity through language (an example of the Medium), and the layout of the text on the page ensures usability, with the information getting less important when moving from top to bottom (an example of the Mode).
Kress further elaborates on the significance of images, stating that the image is the most potent mode of storytelling. Moreover, one of the ways I could improve my multimodality would be by using more accurate imagery, due to the limitations I set myself when using copyright-free images. It’s fair to suggest, not all of the images I’ve used on my blog accurately depict the story that’s established within the main body of the text. Although I’ve ensured coherence between the imagery used on my blog and the imagery shared on Instagram, the choice of images could be more focused on the topic, as opposed to generalised images taken from websites like StockUp.
Ok — I’m not an Instagram influencer just yet, but Instagram is a crucial part of contemporary journalism practices. Not only does Instagram extend the reach of your audience, similar to that of micro-blogging, it’s an effective form of storytelling. Effective multimodality requires consistent and coherent modes, including colour, images and texts, as a way to fully depict the message in question. Although I’ve attempted to implement these modes within my Instagram account, that’s not to say I have perfected the art of multimodality just yet.
