️We are immersed in a hypermedia world with constant bombardment of visuals on our screen (Kress, 2005). Emojis influence our digital communication, thus it is no surprise that the word ‘emoji’ was named the word of the year in 2015 by the Oxford English Dictionary (Bai, et al. 2019) So it would seem simple or second nature to be able to translate our ideas using pictorial representations. This was not the case for this reverse ekphrasis task where the emojis are used to explain the words (Bolter 2001). I found it challenging to find the appropriate emojis to accurately describe the title of the movie and had a strong reliance on text to help convey the message. In my multimodal space, the use of emojis for my personal communication is to enhance the conversation and add emotional value, not to replace the words themselves, so finding icons to match my words was limiting. In this regard, Bolter (2001) suggests that “picture writing lacks narrative power.”
Breaking down the task itself, I began with the title of the movie which [hint] was a verb itself. Even though there was a diverse collection of emojis, being able to depict the action using the icons was restrictive, each one emoji could have multiple meanings but not one corresponded with the word completely. Furthermore, I used the number of syllables in the single-word title to decide the number of emojis used. After looking up the definition of the title, I carefully scoured through the selection of emojis to determine the most suitable options, not completely satisfied with the result. For the other half of the task, the use of emojis to describe the plot was more open ended and left to ambiguous interpretation for the reader (Bai, et al. 2019). Following the conventions of reading, I thought of the logical flow and began choosing the images to represent the sequential storyline. This method was less effective in conveying the semantic meanings in the plot as it provided a gross generalization rather than honing in on the details. The specificity of written language allows for a precise description whereas the emojis often lacked the subtle nuances when adjectives play a large role. The clarity of the message using emojis may get lost in translation and allows for multiple interpretations. Let’s see what the responses will bring! (Answer is below)
References:
Bai, et al. (2019) A Systematic Review of Emoji: Current Research and Future Perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02221/full
Chapter 4. Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110
Kress (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.
Answer: Hustle
Plot: An American scout finds a talented basketball player in Spain hoping to bring him to America to become a basketball star in the NBA.