There are so many ways to answer the question “How are you?,”
but a lot of us default to a word that can mean a ton of different things: “fine.”
You can say “I’m fine,” or “I’m fine,” or even “I’m fine.”
You can say it in an email to your boss.
But firing off that word without an introduction or sign-off might totally confuse them.
Wait, that’s not what you’re supposed to say--there should be other things before
and after the “fine!”
All of these contexts change and influence and even sometimes determine the impact of
this ‘f-word.’
Technology, in particular, offers a ton of contexts that affect our messages, from email
to Twitter to comments in a Google doc.
No wonder it can get overwhelming to send an email!
But we’re already cross-media composers,
writers who constantly respond to the different needs and benefits of the media we use.
And, with practice, we can get better at crafting messages across different media, a move known
as remediation.
By the end of this video you’ll hopefully be feeling, well, if not fine, at least a
little better!
We’re talking about remediation today in Study Hall: Composition, presented by Arizona
State University and Crash Course.
I’m Yumna Samie, let’s get started.
The transmissionary model of communication is the theory that when we write,
we share an idea, and the audience receives the same idea.
Think about Airdrop and other technology for sharing photos between phones.
You can tap one button on your phone, and your picture appears on the other person’s screen.
That’s a direct transmission.
But in our previous video, we began discussing a famous quote from media theorist
Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message.”
A medium is anywhere we compose or share a text.
It’s like the string between two tin cans when kids play telephone.
Your message has to travel through the medium before the other person receives it,
and the medium affects what does and doesn’t show up on the other side.
McLuhan’s point goes against the transmissionary model of communication.
He says that our ideas don’t go straight from our minds to our readers’ minds unchanged.
In fact, to him, the medium completely shapes/ what our audience gets from our message.
In contrast to something like Airdrop, McLuhan would argue communication is more like
someone saving a photograph that they treasure and want to hand down to their descendants.
They have special memories attached to it that aren’t automatically visible in the picture.
Over the years, it gets dropped in a puddle, and squished in the pages of a book,
and the old-timey ink on it gets faded.
At the end, the photographer’s great-great-great grandchild briefly sees the photo,
with the portrait now totally changed and distorted.
The great-great-great grandchild probably thinks “what a weird collar” or “was
the world black-and-white back then?”
rather than thinking about the fond memories that the original person saw in the photo.
The medium of ‘physical photograph’ completely changes the way the photo is perceived down the line.
Our own writing experiences can further disprove the transmissionary model.
Most of us have tried to write something at some point and said,
“ugh, I can’t say what I really mean!”
Even translating from our heads to our writing is an interpretation and a way our original
message can change.
Plus, the medium shapes what we can say, and then the reader further interprets the message
based on their experiences and expectations of that medium.
The whole process is complicated and subjective, and it’s kind of a miracle we can communicate at all!
So while the transmissionary model is oversimplified,
McLuhan’s model isn’t perfect either.
Media aren’t the only things that change messages.
The messages themselves are up for interpretation, by the writer and the audience.
So it’s not as straightforward as either theory.
Both the medium and the idea matter:
we pay careful attention to the words of our messages, but also to the way they’re shaped
by the medium we choose.
We’ve already talked a lot about how to compose words in this series
and different ways audiences might perceive our words, so in this video I want to really
focus on media.
Because all communication is mediated--you know, expressed through a medium.
And especially these days, there are tons of digital media…
like how emails and text messages and social media are all examples of mediated communication.
Even if we write with a quill and ink on parchment paper, that medium still shapes what we can
convey to others.
I mean, I write way less words total when I’m writing with a quill because it takes
a truly tedious amount of time.
I can really get going when it comes to blog posts because I can type super-fast.
And I’m really passionate about my recipes for vegan birthday cake.
All media come with limitations, but they also create opportunities and options.
We call the things you can do within a medium affordances.
For example, an affordance of text messages is the ability to use emojis to convey how
you feel about a particular conversation,
which can be very useful.
Face-to-face communication may lack things like the ability to cite our sources in footnotes,
but it does include inflection, facial expressions, and body language,
all of which communicate extra complexity.
These are affordances of face-to-face speech.
The more we focus on the affordances and limitations, the benefits and drawbacks, of a particular medium,
the more informed we can be about which medium to choose for our own messages.
Let’s look at a Writer in Action who chooses a new medium because she thinks it will have
a better effect on her overall message.
Sasha loves reading about climate science in academic journals.
Her friends, however, haven’t taken as many classes on things like the effects of deforestation
on Earth’s atmosphere.
They find the scientific studies tough to read, so they just… don’t
Sasha sees the affordances of scientific journal articles.
For people who are trying to learn more about environmental science, like she is,
these journal articles include as much specific info as needed to push their knowledge forward.
On the other hand, she sees the constraints of an academic journal article,
like how it doesn’t have a lot of eye-catching pictures, and uses language that not everyone
understands.
So to share her knowledge with her friends and others, instead of just writing her own
scientific studies,
Sasha remediates some important messages about the bad consequences of deforestation.
She decides to start a YouTube channel where a cute cat will sing catchy songs
to teach people about how and why they should preserve forests.
Kind of like Smokey the Bear, but for Gen Z.
In this case, YouTube is a great place to reach a wider audience,
use some funny and adorable cat pictures, and share the key takeaways of the scientific
research.
If she’s lucky, they’ll even get stuck in people’s heads, another affordance of
catchy songs.
That might make people think twice before buying unsustainably harvested products.
As with any remediation, Sasha has to be careful that she’s not interpreting the original
articles incorrectly,
and there’s a chance for losing some important stuff in translation.
But knowing the affordances and constraints of each medium
can help her address her specific audience and communicate the best way she can.
Sasha is a Writer in Action!
One way to become better at remediation is to practice a technique called Comparative
Media Analysis.
When you know the core of your message,
comparing potential media platforms can help you find a particularly useful or appropriate
way to share it.
First, write out your message without thinking about the medium too much.
Yes, technically “a sheet of paper” is a medium with constraints and affordances,
but work with me here.
Write down your first thoughts on how you want to share this idea: an Instagram caption
on a photo, for instance,
or a podcast interview with an expert, or a splashy advertisement in your school’s
print newspaper.
Write out the limitations the medium imposes: some media restrict length, style,
or number of photos you can use with your message.
Some require people to read, while others let them listen.
Next, write some of the expectations of the medium,
which can be limitations or affordances.
Audiences expect a certain type of message to get into a school newspaper, for instance,
and they expect that an Instagram caption will be connected to its photo in some way.
Then think about all the special positives, or affordances, of the medium.
Academic writing, for instance, lets you carefully share all your sources.
So if part of your goal is for people to read more on the topic, an academic article with
some hyperlinked sources might be really useful.
Finally, rewrite your message the way that would work best given these limitations, affordances,
and expectations.
If it hasn’t changed at all, try to think a little deeper about what makes this medium unique.
When you try writing out the limitations, expectations, and affordances for a few different media,
you might see where your message could shine the brightest, and where it would be awkward
or ineffective.
In the process, you might even change your own interpretation of your message.
Maybe you find some core point that you hadn’t anticipated:
imagine if Sasha realized that she wants to address all kinds of air pollution, not just
the impact of deforestation.
Maybe it’s harder to make a song about air pollution, but she could make some infographics
to share alongside her videos.
We never really arrive at a perfect medium for a message,
so we keep trying things and attempting new remediations over time.
Sure, sometimes you’ll have to stick with the medium given to you.
Your boss may not let you deliver the weekly report as an interpretative dance,
even if you think you’ve perfected your message in that form.
Still, comparing multiple media can help you understand what your audience will see in
the message
when they view it through your particular medium.
As we’ve discovered, media contexts and remediation are both messy and complicated.
We can use our understanding to be more precise and effective as we think critically about contexts.
The medium is much more important to how we compose and communicate than we might have
assumed, so the limitations, affordances,
and expectations of the medium play a big role in the message that our audience receives.
So don’t overanalyze it, but do pay attention--be aware of your media,
and beware of how people tell you that they’re ‘fine.’
Join us for our next video, where we’ll talk about how strategies
and ways of appealing to our audience can help us achieve our purposes for writing.
Thanks for watching Study Hall: Composition, which is produced by Arizona State University
and the Crash Course team at Complexly.
If you liked this video and want to keep learning with us here in Study Hall, be sure to subscribe.
You can learn more about ASU and the videos produced by Crash Course
in the links in the description.
See you next time!