IoE website, 2013
Is navigating this website really so different from navigating a text brochure? A novel or math book is meant to be experienced in a linear way, but I would argue that someone looking to turn some information into knowledge for their personal use would interact with informational printed text in much the same way as they would do with a website…especially a website that is largely text-based anyway. Moreover, while tabs and ‘breadcrumbs’ make the experience feel less linear than a printed booklet does, they are actually represented in a linear way.
If I was a student looking for information, I wouldn’t necessarily garner any meaning from the images–while this may be happening on a subconcious level, it is then more of a marketing tactic than another way of presenting information or content.
register this course
Hi Zahra–If you’d like to register for the E-learning and Digital Cultures open online course, you can do so via this website: https://www.coursera.org/course/edc
‘I would argue that someone looking to turn some information into knowledge for their personal use would interact with informational printed text in much the same way as they would do with a website’
I agree Candace. I think Kress’s argument is potentially weakened by using this particular example. It doesn’t take into account genre or reading sub-skills such as scanning and skimming. The purpose of a printed prospectus is exactly the same as a website – to give information to prospective students. The reader will then use scanning skills to select relevant and useful information and to disregard irrelevant sections. This may be fairly conventional, (opening the front page, using the contents page) or it may be via random flicking through, following alphabetisation etc. So, potential multiple entry points. And arguably the same process for meaning-making as he argues is so different for the website.
I’m struggling to see his point of difference here.