Scrolling through Instagram you see your friend #selfiesunday, an ad for some Zaful clothes, an inspirational quote that Karamo Brown from Queer Eye Posted, and the latest video of some kid unsuccessfully skateboarding down a flight of stairs. Your Instagram is a perfect example of Multimodality.
Multimodality surrounds us every single day, we are continuously bombarded with multi modal text, filled with videos, graphics, letters, etc… Now even on airlines, we see beautiful examples of how Multimodality is prevalent in everyday life and in travel.
In the Bogost Rhetoric excerpt, it mentions how Aristotle did not define rhetoric as only verbal. “Effectively, rhetoric was extended to account for new modes of inscription – especially literary and artistic modes. Rhetoric in writing, painting, sculpture, and other media do not necessarily make the same direct appeals to persuasion as oratory.” (19) This is the first step toward people realizing Multimodality can be used effectively to portray a certain meaning and use “out of the box” modes to get across a message, and that is exactly what the United safety video is doing.
In this screenshot from the United safety video you hear the Swedish band start to play as the flight attendant begins talking about oxygen masks, then it pans over to three people wearing lederhosen, bopping to the music as they demonstrate how to correctly put on the masks. It is clearly portraying the message of how to put on your oxygen mask and what to do if your child or another child is in your row. Obviously throughout this video they have tried to keep a theme of fun and party which makes sense because it keeps you engaged about the otherwise boring information. However in order to have the scene and place be able to be figured out so quickly they have included stereotypes of the place and people that live there. The clothes and music are traditional to Swedish culture but that does not mean everyone there looks like that and listens to that kind of music. Along with the pretzels that is another stereotype they are playing into.
The Bogost excerpt does not necessarily talk about travel or culture, however it does talk about digital rhetoric through online blogs, wikis, websites etc… And even though going online does not mean your traveling, there are many things online that can make it feel like you are going on a trip or traveling to a new place in the comfort of your own home. For example watching a youtube video about someones vacation, or reading an article with photos on a skydiving adventure or a “must see” tropical beach in Cancun, you can “travel” through Multimodality online. This relates to the United video because they are showing you all the places you could travel to on your next United flight within the safety video. You don’t have to actually leave to get more insight and information on new places, cultures, and experiences. However it is important to keep in mind that because they are picking and choosing what to include you are not going to get the whole experience that you would if you did actually travel there. This is one disadvantage to travel and technology, it gives the creator the ability to get rid of or add anything they want even if it is part of the place. For example in the next scene it shows India and all the people having a huge colorful party, however that is not what India is really like all the time. For example it doesn’t portray that India is one of the most populated countries in the world, and also that they have the most lingual diversity.
Besides the fact of omission when it comes to travel and technology, the picture above emphasizes my point about learning about the culture without actually having to go there. This brings across the message that they do this in India as a tradition or something fun to do, and it is something different that we do not do in America. Like I said before, this continues the theme of fun in the video which still emphasizing travel and culture. I think that this brings a lot to the United video because they want flying with United to seem like an easy, even fun thing to do, and this scene definitely conveys that message.
Overall I think that both the United airline video and the piece on rhetoric give us good insight on how you can use Multimodality and rhetoric to portray different messages in an out of the box way. An airline safety video does not have to be strictly facts and it can teach you more than just safety information. As well as the rhetoric piece, that gave insight about how even back in Aristotle’s time Multimodality was an idea that was soon to come to life.
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