Post on 13-Feb-2017
Using the visitgreece social media posts to introduce
visual imagery in language syllabus
Elli Vazou & Periklis PolitisPhD student Associate Prof.Dept. of Journalism and Mass CommunicationsAristotle University of Thessaloniki
what we are going to see together
at a glance: the VisitGreece social media posts, that is facebook, google+, instagram, flickr, and twitter;through the basic tenets of critical multiliteracies, multimodality, critical tourism studies, and tourism & visual culture (Schirato & Webb, 2004; Buckingham, 2008; Abraham & Williams, 2009; Ito et al., 2010; Kress et al., 2001; Kress, 2003; Serafini, 2014; Schirato & Webb, 2004; Buckingham, 2008; Abraham & Williams, 2009; Ito et al., 2010; Kress et al., 2001; Kress, 2003; Serafini, 2014);
casting a little more light on visual images; examining how can visual literacy enter the language classroom and help co-create a novel multimodal curriculum (Foucault, 1963 (1973); Rose, 1993; Dann, 1996; Crawshaw & Urry, 1997; Ryan, 2002; Schroeder, 2002; Cappelli, 2008; Hunter, 2008; Burns et al., 2010 & 2010; Munar, 2011; Urry & Larsen, 2011; Politis & Vazou, 2012; Moufakkir & Reisinger, 2013; Thurlow, 2013; boyd, 2014).
tourism (destination branding)
visual, media,
and digital literacy
We will try to combine and
make all these work together;
to rethink of what it means to
be literate in
today’s world.
Let's see how:
Many scholars have analysed tourism imagery in a way that brings us closer to
the notion of "critical"
introducing the notion of "gaze"
...which is taken to be the institutionalized form of power . “Under Foucauldian light, the gaze is
not so much an act of seeing, but an act of knowing” (Moufakkir & Reisinger, 2013: xiv).
The gaze is constructed through signs, and tourism involves the collection of signs (Urry &
Larsen, 2011).
Such gazes cannot be left to chance. People
have to learn how, when and where to
‘gaze’ (Urry, 2011: 12).
So, how has the GNTO—the main governmental body responsible for promoting Greece worldwide—used imagery and has built a
certain identity for the country as a (tourism) destination throughout the years? And how hasn't the GNTO left this gaze to
chance?
from the typical ad campaigns and the old tourism posters
moving on
...to the new Internet era; a political decision to show Greece's new face, a
renovated image of a country fully engaged with the new media (here the
medium was also the message)
Text on the VisitGreece site
From the political decisions regarding the branding of Greece to language
classroom
Looking at the images alone:
Children will be able to discover that “looking is a learned ability and that the
pure and innocent eye is a myth” (Urry 2011:
1).
By considering the following:
• Is really an image worth a thousand words?• Do images convey certain meanings in a more
dynamic way than language?
How a country’s image has been built up through the visual elements of a photo? (That is, focus, light, angle, foreground, background,
composition, saturation, framing, etc.)
According to resources
(e.g. a landscape,
or an archaeological finding) how is the
camera positioned?
Are there emotional, or iconic images?
Which are their
differences and
purpose?
Are there stereotypica
l representati
ons? Are there any recurrent symbols?
Pupils will be called to examine basic elements of web
design/layout:• Colours used, impressions of dominant colours.
Why?• What kind of lines are preferred? Fine and smooth,
or wavy and curved? Why?
“Photographs are a powerful medium for tourism destination promotion. They cast the natural and
cultural resources of a destination in the best light and even prescribe the proper host–tourist interactions through their depictions. It could be said that their representational power
transforms a place into a destination” (Hunter, 2008: 354).
Logos are a destination’sDNA
logo
a variety of graphic and
typeface elements
a graphic design that a destination uses, with or
without a destination name attached to it, to
identify itself as a producer of quality
products or services.
part of a destination’s sign system
and is applied to communicate
the destination’s identity to
internal and external
audiences
In this way, logos can be regarded as
a destination’s signature on its
materials .
Eros Έρως The Greek god of love. He gave us the word “erotic”. He made people fall in love using a few arrows and the most romantic islands in the
Mediterranean Sea.
Considering the multimodal/digital content:
“In learning with and through these media, young people are also learning how to learn. They are
developing particular orientations toward information, particular methods of acquiring new knowledge and
skills, and a sense of their own identities as learners” (Buckingham, 2008).
As we are talking in essence about tourism advertising (destination branding), the content analysed uses
persuasive techniques to lure and influence audiences worldwide.
• That means that children will be more aware of the messages they receive, and analyze these idyllic
images and the descriptions accompany them within a certain political/historical context.
• This helps children become critical consumers, and also teaches them how to craft persuasive visual arguments or messages (Serafini, 2014:
143).
Children witness that pictorial and verbal elements interact, and so do schemes and tropes: they work together
as modes of figuration to build up a feel for a country as a tourism destination and to attract travellers.
Posts (just like print ads) are a kind of “compressed mes-sage” through which a country conveys its brand promise: what are its core values, the unique experiences offered, to what extent can it live up to the visitor’s expectations, etc.
As the messages of the GNTO posts address the whole world, regardless of cross-cultural differences,
children also learn that intense experiences on which destination branding is based seem to be
universal.And in this way they get familiar with the notion of
universality in meaning-making.
Different social media and their specific layout change also the way texts are structured —the so-called linguistic/tech-nological variables— (e.g. frequent use of bullets, number-ing, word choice, sentence structure, identity markers, spell-ing, features automatically introduced by the software, string
length, etc.) (Herring, 2011; Crystal, 2011).
It seems now—as we have moved from page to screen—that the text becomes a kind of visual
entity (as Kress mentioned back in 2003).
Visual grammar issues also arise: According to the principles of visual grammar the
placing of the elements of image and writing on the space of the
screen matters.• What is located on the left, right, or centre? What is
on the top and bottom?• Are there eye-catching techniques adopted?
• Which elements are salient and why?
A simple example is the ‘caption’ (we find it in Instagram, or Flickr posts), where it clearly matters whether the verbal caption is placed near to the visual element or more distantly, or whether it is placed at the top, at the bottom, to the left or to the right, within the same frame, within the visual element or outside (as it happens with other digital
genres, such as the visitgreece newsletter, the homepage, etc.).
Depending on the medium children will also learn: (a) whether the written text or the image are used and inter-act in different ways; (b) are there degrees of interaction or interactivity, e.g. between a medium based primarily on im-age, such as Instagram, or another which allows us to write
longer texts, such as Facebook?
As we saw earlier (in the brand manual) letters alone have significances at the visual level
(different fonts for different messages, use of capital letters,
etc.).
Finally, children will be able to find hidden ideologies established by public policy
authorities (exercise social power) and relate them to visual and verbal messages.
Some issues to reflect upon
• To what extent does the logic of image dominates on the screen? And what are the
consequences on the way children are taught language in school?
• Should language curricula also take into consideration the fact that writing has a
subsidiary role to image?
Should the question of which mode to use for the representation of what content is
become closely connected with curriculum?
Schools traditionally privilege abstract and discrete forms of knowledge. How can these
forms be mixed with the skills that young people develop through their out-of-school digital
practices?
As we’ve watched how landscapes are being shown around the world, and how tourism has
the power to transform a land into a land-scape,
maybe it’s time to think of all the changes brought
about as the communicational landscape is moving
more towards the use of image.
If school is not willing to follow that trend, does that mean that education harbour the
danger of not engaging
with the children's interests?
#thank_you_ all!