ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 1|8 pages

The Futures of Literacy

Modes, logics and affordances

chapter 2|7 pages

Preface

chapter 3|19 pages

Going Into a Different World

chapter 4|25 pages

Literacy and Multimodality

A theoretical framework

chapter 5|23 pages

What is Literacy?

Resources of the mode of writing

chapter 6|22 pages

A Social Theory of Text

Genre

chapter 7|16 pages

Multimodality, Multimedia and Genre

chapter 8|18 pages

Meaning and Frames

Punctuations of semiosis

chapter 9|29 pages

Reading as Semiosis

Interpreting the world and ordering the world