Content: This course explores a contemporary set of approaches to visual communication, called 'multimodality', which allow us to carry out more systematic analyses and even to create a predictive framework as to how visual elements, features and forms communicate. We look at a number of these in turn and analyze a range of different media forms such as webpages, tablet designs, food packaging, branding, political communication, etc. We will think about the way that communicative elements can be thought of as resources for communicating very precise ideas, attitudes and values appropriate to target market groups. In each lecture students will learn one set of tools for observation and be expected to then seek out and analyze their own examples in seminars. |