Media Literacy

Media Literacy

Chapter 2. The Aesthetics of Multimedia (published in Japan in Japanese in 1998.)

1. Grammar of Multimedia

Language and Grammar

Before the birth of multimedia, a person who could not draw pictures could never become an artist, any more than one who could not play an instrument could become a musician. However, our modern technological civilization has produce machines that render such impossibilities possible. In other words, computers have popularized the arts.

Yet, to the massed without access to computers, there is still no means of practicing the arts. This "popularization" of the arts is limited to the more affluent peoples of the world.

There is yet another pitfall. Ordinary people who do have access to computers may have past experiences in art appreciation, but most have never before created art of their own.

When pondering the issue of multimedia education, we must first consider the hard-to-define term of "media literacy". It is correct to regard multimedia as an unknown language, but how unfortunate that a technological giant like Japan limits itself to the crude concept of media literacy as a mere understanding of hardware (i.e., an issue of whether or not one can use the machines)!

Properly speaking, media literacy cannot exist without a decoding of the context of the medium itself (software). In order to do this, one must of course make reference to the history of the medium's establishment, as well as possibilities for forms of expression employing media. We shall take these considerations up at another time, focusing in this chapter on an interpretation of the fundamentals of multimedia grammar (or aesthetics) from two directions: images appealing to the scene of vision (movies, television, videos, computer images, CD-ROMs ) and sounds appealing to the sense of hearing (the human voice, recordings, CD-ROMs ).

The Fundamentals of Visual Images

When we consider the basics of visual images in the context of education, we find that the growth in opportunities for students to create visual images by themselves is the biggest factor setting the multimedia era apart from the past. For instance, a student could use an image of the full moon from the home page of National Geographic magazine to create a film about the moon. But when we consider this situation carefully, we realize that multimedia cannot be used effectively without an understanding of visual composition, metaphor, symbols, and the connection between one image an the next--areas that have previously been the domain of specialists. We also recognize that a more detailed knowledge of images was actually necessary even back in the days when all the average person had to do with visual images was behold them. It is instructive to consider Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph of the Will from this standpoint. This film, made to glorify the Nazis under Hitler's control, is a treasure-house of the conventions to which visual images lend themselves. The film shows Hitler as if descending from a gorgeous sky, the camera taking the vantage point of people worshiping him from below, flanking both sides of a street. It is as if Hitler were God himself. The people below look up at Hitler against the backdrop of the sky. In the world of film, a camera angle looking up into the heavens symbolizes hope. Of course, history has shown just how empty the hope conveyed by this propaganda film turned out to be.

More recently, English Patient, which won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, used this same convention, the camera angling up into the sky as Juliette Binoche, playing the nurse,left the battlefield at the end. Not a few viewers must have had the ominous foreboding that this film may actually have been a tribute to war. Most frightening of all, these examples make us realize that multimedia and photography of all kinds are created under Western conceptions of the world.

Cultural Issues

Because they are under the misconception that Japan is quite Westernized, the Japanese tend to make light of differences between Japan and the West when considering visual images, The moon in a picture is the same moon, wherever it is viewed, but there is a difference in significance between the moon viewed in a Japanese environment and the moon as Westerners conceive of it.

For the Japanese, the tradition of moon-viewing remains in full force, whether or not rockets reach the moon, and the tale of "The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child " is a time-honored fantasy. For Americans, the moon is just a place that has been conquered, not the stuff of fantasy. It only leaves behind an image of craters, barren land, and desolate scenes. In this contrast between the Japanese and Western images of the moon we see a classic example of Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations." Thus, if we were to create an image of a Japanese fairy tale using a shot of the moon, Americans would not be able to grasp its full cultural significance. This difficulty in cross-cultural interpretation of images forces us to consider the issue of whether Japanese multimedia education is to be based on Western aesthetics or whether we should find characteristically Japanese modes of expression in the course of compromise, with Western aesthetics studied as an adjunct to this pursuit (Since computer images themselves have come into being under Western conceptions, it is perhaps impossible to completely ignore western aesthetics). This may seem like a potential problems that lies in the distant future, but I believe that cultural clashes of this type will occur surprisingly soon, even in the use of multimedia in the classroom.

The Aesthetics of Visual Images

The aesthetics of visual images is based on the necessary premise that the image not be unpleasant.  This premise is common to both paintings and photographs, and it is a matter of the "stability" of the image.  When it comes to movies, in particular, one could fill a book with all the pertinent rules, but the main theme boils down to not giving an unpleasant impression to the viewer.  This depends on what is to be shown in the image, but in the case of a human being, you must make it clear what exactly you are expressing about that person.  For instance, when making a shot of a girl about to vault over a gymnastic busk, you would not want to show just her face, lest the viewer fail to grasp what she is doing.  On the other hand, it would be boring to show a continuous view of the buck and the firl's entire body.  If you were to insert some shots of the details of her face (eye movement, etc,), you could enliven the image by expressing her emotions as well.  In aesthetics, one must also consider the rule of thirds, whereby one divides the image into thirds vertically as well as horizontally, positioning the subject so as to give an impression of harmony and stability.  ( See Figure 2-1)

Figure 2-1 The Aesthetics of Visual Images And The Rule of Thirds

(Reference: T. Schroeppel, "The Bare Bones Camera Course For Film and Video."1997.)

Look at this stability of this image.

Height of the eyes is upper one third.

Do not position the profile face to the center.

Sound

Let us now consider the fundamentals of expression through sound.  Sound encompasses physical attributes such as amplitude, frequency, and waveform, as well as psychological aspects such as loudness, pitch, and tone.  As stressed by Dr. D.M. Carroll of Menlo College (1998), the first issue that arises in discussions of sound quality in the classroom is, of course, the human voice.  The human voice must be carefully recorded.  If, for instance, you are using a recorded voice in a presentation, that presentation could fail to achieve the desired effect if the audience is unable to make out what is said.  In order that the listener might easily comprehend the content of the presentation, it may be necessary that the speaker have training in speaking Japanese correctly.  Moreover, it can be very effective to modulate the voice at the time of recording. 

Having a special room for recording is helpful i regulating the physical effects of sound, but even if a recording studio is available, such a space is essentially an audio room and will require some adjustments to function as a media room.  If possible, it is desirable to secure access to a computer with large memory capacity, as well as a sound-surrounded-type studio and a directional microphone, but we must not forget that the minimum required recording equipment is still just a microphone.