Once we move out of academia and onto the world wide web, the multimodal format that takes perhaps the least amount of technological knowledge is the blog. Blog (short for web log) is generally a website that someone updates regularly with their own personal thoughts. In this post, I'm going to talk about the modes of communication that blogs use, the rhetorical situation of a blog, how to use examples from films in a blog, how to make your blog accessible, and a few suggestions on making a blog.
Modes
Another format that relies on linguistic, visual, and spatial modes of communication is the blog. Blogs use many of the same modes of communication as academic papers:
You use written words to explain your ideas (linguistic, visual)
You can embed images to help illustrate your point (visual)
You need to think about the spacing on your page, especially since people may be viewing the blog on their computer, tablet, or phone (spatial)
Blogs also often use one other mode:
Aural: because blogs are online, they can include sound and video clips to help get your point across.
Rhetorical Situation
While academic papers are mostly seen by your teacher or other scholars, blogs are open to a wider audience because they exist online. Because your reader is not necessarily going to be academic, your text should look and feel different.
While people do post academic papers they’ve written online, many people take the ideas that they’ve developed in academic papers and simplify them, taking out some of the research and jargon to make it more accessible to a wider range of people.
But most blogs are written without any academic research, relying on popular sources or no research at all. They also do not undergo peer review, where scholars help refine ideas, so the ideas may be less vetted (though people on the internet have a way of letting you know when they don't like something, as they can do in the comment section of blogs).
On the level of format and style, paragraphs often become shorter, and people usually use more images, GIFs, and clips.
But blogs’ digital medium, and the fact that blogs are online, also means that you can get your ideas out there more quickly. For example, in December 2017, I saw Blue Sky’s Ferdinand in theaters, and I immediately wanted to write on the film’s portrayal of masculinity. I mean, look at this cutie (the bull, I mean):
To publish an article on it, I would need the time to do research on masculinity and toxic masculinity, write the paper, send it to a journal, revise one or more times as other scholars point out the parts that need work, then wait for it to be published. That might take two or more years, but I want to talk about it now!
So, instead of waiting for the slow wheels of academia to turn, I could make a blog post about it. It could be done almost immediately, and it would be open to a wider public than would most likely ever read it in a journal.
Using Examples
As you can see, I’m using a lot more images here than in an academic paper, and you can also use videos, sound clips, or GIFs in blog posts. Because blogs are born digital, you have a lot more kinds of examples that you can use. On a blog, you can use these examples a lot more to achieve different things: it's okay to include examples that are there to help set the mood of your blog rather than just trying to assist your argument. Just keep in mind that people may be reading your blog on a phone: if you put too many images, then it can be hard to find the text.
You can also link to things, like other articles that are talking about the same ideas or longer examples from your text. For example, if I wanted to talk about how Disney has been creating links between its most recent princess films so that they all exist in the same world, I could explain how popular articles have looked at Easter Eggs in Disney movies in general or in particular Disney movies then explain how I want to join the conversation by linking specific movies together (coming somewhere in between the two current strategies). My reader can now click on those hyperlinks and see what others are already saying so I don't have to spend much time explaining the current conversation. As with other kinds of examples, just make sure you're not overwhelming your reader with too much stuff and not enough you!
Accessibility
Just remember, with any example you include, you need to make sure you include a description to make your project more accessible. Descriptions may look a little different, depending on what website you're using for your blog. On Wix (which is what I'm using), the descriptions are apparently only available while using a text reader or while hovering over the images; on another website builder I used (Adobe SparkPage), the descriptions appeared underneath the image.
No matter how the website builder incorporates the descriptions, make sure you have them! If your audience can't see/hear/understand your examples, then they won't be able to follow your argument.
Suggestions:
I have never kept an active blog, but here are my suggestions as someone who has read and taught a lot of blogs:
Do remember that people can comment on your blog posts (as you can see with the comment box below). This can be great because you can get a real conversation started about what you want to talk about. It can also be...frustrating because people on the internet are sometimes cruel and nonsensical. You'll want to think about that before you post something.
If you want to make a blog post but don't necessarily need a whole blog for yourself, or if you want to try out a blog post before making your own blog, see if you can write a guest post on someone else's blog. A lot of bloggers will have guest posts, so reach out to any friends with blogs. You may also think about finding a film blog that you really like and asking them if they would have you as a guest. They may say no, but you'll never know until you try!
When you make your own blog, you'll also need to consider which website builder you use. Each site builder has its own unique affordances and limitations. Perhaps the most popular website builders for blogging are WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. I personally like Wix best because the layout and features make the most sense to me, but everyone has their personal preference. Which site you choose will impact what you create. For example, I originally created my website on Adobe Spark Page and frequently found myself frustrated with it because I kept finding things I couldn't do (inserting navigation links or GIFs or presentations or audio files or...). This constrained what I could do with that page as I built it and forced me to get creative in order to include some of the examples or formats that I wanted. Ultimately, I ended up creating this site on Wix because the project got so big that I really needed the navigation that it offered. (You can find that original page here, in case you want to see how it changed.) While Wix ended up being the right site for this project, that might not be the case for you. Whatever your situation, you'll need to think through these factors as you choose which site you use.
Happy blogging, everyone!