1st Edition

Literacy in the New Media Age

By Gunther Kress Copyright 2003
    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    204 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this 'new media age' the screen has replaced the book as the dominant medium of communication. This dramatic change has made image, rather than writing, the centre of communication.

    In this groundbreaking book, Gunther Kress considers the effects of a revolution that has radically altered the relationship between writing and the book. Taking into account social, economic, communication and technological factors, Kress explores how these changes will affect the future of literacy.

    Kress considers the likely larger-level social and cultural effects of that future, arguing that the effects of the move to the screen as the dominant medium of communication will produce far-reaching shifts in terms of power - and not just in the sphere of communication. The democratic potentials and effects of the new information and communication technologies will, Kress contends, have the widest imaginable consequences.

    Literacy in the New Media Age is suitable for anyone fascinated by literacy and its wider political and cultural implications. It will be of particular interest to those studying education, communication studies, media studies or linguistics.

    1. The futures of literacy: modes, logics and affordances 2. Preface 3. Going into a different world 4. Literacy and multimodality: a theoretical framework 5. What is literacy?: resources of the mode of writing 6. A social theory of text: genre 7. Multimodality, multimedia and genre 8. Meaning and frames: punctuations of semiosis 9. Reading as semiosis: interpreting the world and ordering the world 10. Some items for an agenda of further thinking

    Biography

    Gunther Kress is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.