Transmediation and Visual Literacy
Transmediation is a process of bringing meaning from one sign system to another. Transmediation is the basis of all literacy and it’s the essence of media literacy. Graphic art, sculpture, dance, music, photography, all are bearers of meaning, and each medium constrains the types of messages it can express. Every sign system has it’s own grammar.
Take graphs, for instance.
About a month ago John Pederson posted a graph on his blog about rate of change in education. Tom Hoffman commented, and left a trackback that he called Graph Troll (Tom’s blog had a meltdown and we can’t see his post now. He’s got a new blog running here.)
I thought about how graphs might be useful for communicating all sorts of messages - like opinions - not necessarily empirically validated. It seemed like a good idea for a blog, but I didn’t have any messages that demanded graphic representation. I forgot about the idea.
Until Kevin linked to Indexed. It’s a GREAT graphic blog. It’s smart. It’s funny. The author, Jessica Hagy, uses graphs and diagrams to produce cultural commentary. Good stuff.
Chris L wrote,
I posted indexed to my linklog in December… great site. But I wanted to point out a great little short film based on indexed that I discovered and blogged at Cosmopo… I think you will enjoy it:
http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/archives/2007/01/12/le-grand-content/
Link | January 17th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Miss Profe wrote,
Intriguing. I can’t say that I completely grasp the concept; I am definitely a word girl.:) However, I do like and appreciate various forms of expression, and it definitely catches one’s attention.
Link | January 17th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Mary Lee wrote,
LOVE indexed! That’s a keeper.
Here’s a new take on mapping at Children’s Illustration.
Link | January 17th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Marco Polo wrote,
You might enjoy also Hugh McLeod’s Gaping Void - cartoons drawn on the back of business cards.
Thanks for the movie link, Doug, that was cool.
Link | January 18th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Chris L wrote,
Agreed, Hugh is not only a great cartoonist, but a shrewd commenter. I love his recent random notes on blogging post.
Link | January 19th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Wesley Fryer wrote,
I’m excited you linked to the WikiPedia article for transmediation, Doug! That is the first WikiPedia article I actually started, after I heard the term for the first time in a literacy class I took a couple of summers ago. I agree it is a critical concept, and more we should be talking about more. Thanks for the link to indexed. Also, if you have a chance I’d love to hear your thoughts on the how do you write meme!
Link | January 22nd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Doug wrote,
Good job, Wesley. It wasn’t easy to find information about transmediation. I had a couple of other choices, but they weren’t directly focused on the topic. I agree that we could pay more attention to it.
As to the ‘how do you write’ meme, I’m working on a piece that indirectly addresses the question. It’s a hard question - almost like, How do you teach?
Link | January 23rd, 2007 at 6:29 am