Chapter 4; Multimodality's exploitation of the human race.

  The fact that multimodality is necessary really says something about the world we live in today. Multimodality as discussed in chapter four is about "making meaning" of writing that can not be conveyed with just plain text. As is true with many other aspects of a digital world, this is a double edged sword.

Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words. It is much easier for me to show you a picture of my view from the hills of Northern California than it is to explain to you the beauty and splendor that it conveys.But you will never actually experience what you see in the picture or video shown. Pictures and videos are second hand experiences that we compile to try to keep the first hand experience alive in our hearts and minds.

Multimodality allows us to create page layouts and advertisements to sway people into feeling certain things and help them to lean towards certain decisions, but what isn't taken into account is that this is just another way of societal manipulation.It helps companies LIE and exploit the masses to benefit their agendas.What digital communication and writing does is eliminate the humanity of guilt, body language, and expression. While it is easy to convey certain things, multimodality and digital writing makes it easier to hide and ignore the opposing viewpoints.

One of the most prominent examples I could think of about "making meaning" out of plain text was the use of emoticons and pictures while texting. It is easy to send your boyfriend a picture of your homework so he thinks you're home studying while you're really at Sunny's getting yo' freak on. But the scarier thing is how emoticons can hide one's true feelings. Say you're texting someone you have an interest in. They actually hate you, but to spare your feelings or to string you along they send you a "heyy :) " back. Little do you know they actually on a date right now. Now imagine the same scenario in person. There is definitely no smile on the face of a player who just got caught, nor are you smiling. The thing that plain text lacks and will always lack is the necessary truth serum of body language.

Multimodality is just another way of manipulating and censoring the information and "truth" that is conveyed to the general public, or even loved ones. You can be hurting inside but text that everything is alright with some rainbows, puppies and butterflies. Seems legit. But if you had that conversation in person the pain in one's eyes would be evident, your posture would lie to the world despite the words that come out on screen or page. There is no equal alternative to face to face in person contact. While one can lie in person, it is much easier to do so through writing, and multimedia methods has only made the cycle of immorality and deceit spin around faster.