EVALUATING MESSAGES AND/OR IMAGES OF

DIFFERENT TYPES OF TEXTS REFLECTING DIFFERENT

CULTURES

Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. analyze media messages and/or images using Key Concepts of Media Literacy Framework;
and
b. create a multimodal advertisement or project of a cause-oriented event.

Learning Content:

Brainstorming….

Analyze the drawing and picture below. Generate ideas and concepts about the message
being conveyed by the pictures presented.

(Banuelos, M. (2018). Requirement in GEC4

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 htps://www.spot.ph/newsfeatures/58712/10-ads-that-created-controversy-2015-edition

Multimodal literacy is about understanding the different ways of knowledge representations

and meaning-making (Kress, et al., 2001). It focuses on the design of discourse by investigating the
contributions of specific semiotic resources (language, gesture, images) co-deployed across various
modalities (visual, aural, somatic). It also deals with the interaction and integration in constructing a
coherent multimodal text such as advertisements, posters, news report, websites, and films.

Many texts are multimodal, where meaning is communicated through combinations of two or
more modes. Modes include written language, spoken language, and patterns of meaning that are
visual, audio, gestural, tactile and spatial.

Multimodal texts can be paper-based, live, or digital. 

Paper-based multimodal texts include picture books, text books, graphic novels, comics,
and posters.

Live multimodal texts, for example, dance, performance, and oral storytelling, convey
meaning through combinations of various modes such as gestural, spatial, audio, and oral language. 

Digital multimodal texts include film, animation, slide shows, e-posters, digital stories,
podcasts, and web pages that may include hyperlinks to external pronunciation guides or translations.

Traditional Media Social Media

Advertisement

Editorial Cartoon

Traditional Media

Social Media

Cope & Kalantzis (1999). Multiliteracies: A Design for

Social Futures. Routledge.

Multiliteracies is a pedagogical approach developed in 1994 by the New London Group that
aims to make classroom teaching more inclusive of cultural, linguistic, communicative, and
technological diversity. They advocate this so that students will be better prepared for a successful life
in a globalized world.

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 Modes and Meaning Systems
We can use five broad semiotic or meaning making systems to talk about how we create
meaning: linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, and spatial patterns of meaning New London
Group (1996).

 Linguistic meaning concerns spoken and written language through use of vocabulary, generic
structure and grammar.

 Audio meaning concerns music, sound effects, noises, ambient noise and silence, through use of
volume, pitch and rhythm.

 Visual meaning concerns still and moving images through use of color, saliency, page layouts,
vectors, viewpoint, screen formats, visual symbols; shot framing, subject distance and angle;
camera movement, subject movement.

 Gestural meaning concerns movement of body, hands and eyes; facial expression, demeanours,
and body language, and use of rhythm, speed stillness and angles.

 Spatial meaning concerns environmental spaces and architectural spaces and use of proximity,
direction, layout, position of and organization of objects in space.

Key Concepts of Media Literacy (Center for Media Literacy, 2005)

Key Concepts Guide Questions in Media Text Keyword

Analysis
1. All messages are ‘constructed.’  What kind of “text” is it? Authorship
 What are the various elements
The key behind this concept is (building blocks) that make up the
figuring out who constructed the whole?
message, out of what materials How similar or different is it to
and to what effect. others of the same genre?
 Which technologies are used in its
creation?
 What choices were made that
might have been made differently?
 How many people did it take to
create this message? What are their
various jobs?
2. Media messages are constructed  What do you notice… Format
using a creative language with its (about the way the message is
own rules. constructed)?
Colors? Shapes? Size?
Each form of communication has Sounds, Words? Silence?
its own creative language: scary Props, sets, clothing?
music heightens fear, camera Movement?
close-ups convey intimacy, and Composition? Lighting?
big headlines signal significance. Where is the camera?
Understanding the grammar, What is the viewpoint?
syntax and metaphor of media How is the story told visually?
language helps us to be less What are people doing?

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 susceptible to manipulation.  Are there any symbols?
 Visual metaphors?
 What’s the emotional appeal?
Persuasive devices used?
 What makes it seem “real?”
3. Different people experience the  Have you ever experienced Audience
same media message differently. anything like this in your life?
 How close is this portrayal to your
Audiences play a role in experience?
interpreting media messages What did you learn from this media
because each audience member text?
brings to the message a unique set What did you learn about yourself
of life experiences. Differences in from experiencing the media text?
age, gender, education and cultural What did you learn from other
upbringing will generate unique people’s response?
interpretations.  From their experience of life?
 How many other interpretations
could there be? How could we hear
about them?
 Are other viewpoints present?
 How can you explain the different
responses?
4. Media have embedded values and What kinds of behaviors / Content
points of view. consequences are depicted?
 What type of person is the reader /
Because they are constructed, watcher / listener invited to identify
media messages carry a subtext of with?
who and what is important — at What questions come to mind as
least to the person or people you watch / read / listen?
creating the message. The choice What ideas or values are being
of a character’s age, gender or “sold” to us in this message?
race, the selection of a setting, What political ideas are
and the actions within the plot communicated in the message?
are just some of the ways that Economic ideas?
values become “embedded” in a What judgments or statements are
television show, a movie or an mad about how we treat other
advertisement. people?
 What is the overall worldview of
the message?
 What ideas or perspectives are left
out? How would you find what’s
missing?
5. Most media messages are  Who’s in control of the creation Purpose
organized to gain profit and/or and transmission of this message?
power.  Why are they sending it?
 How do you know?
Much of the world’s media were Who are they sending it to? How
developed as money-making do you know?
enterprises. Newspapers and What’s being sold in this message?
magazines lay out their pages What’s being told?
with ads first; the space Who profits from this message?
remaining is devoted to news. Who pays for it?
Likewise, commercials are part
 Who is served by or benefits from

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and parcel of most television the message
watching. Now, the Internet has – the public?
become an international platform – private interests?
through which groups or – individuals?
individuals can attempt to – institutions?
persuade.  What economic decisions may
have influenced the construction or
transmission of this message?

Activities:

Activities will be uploaded in the Google Classroom - classwork

Self-Assessment:

Self-Assessment will be uploaded in the Google Classroom - classwork

References:

Kress, G., Jewitt, C., Ogborn, J., & Tsatsarelis, C. (2001). Multimodal Teaching and learning:
The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. London: Continuum

Center for Media Literacy (2005). Key Concepts of Media Literacy. www.medialit.org

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/
readingviewing/Pages/litfocusmultimodal.aspx

https://creatingmultimodaltexts.com/modes-and-meaning-systems/

https://www.learning-theories.com/multiliteracies-new-london-group.html

https://yali.state.gov/media-literacy-five-core-concepts/

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