Emoji representation of a popular film. Numbering has been used for referencing.

I just recently had to watch the move that I’ve depicted in emoji for another class, so it was still fairly fresh in my mind. Beginning with the title, I chose emoji that best reflected the more salient plot points in the movie. The emoji used to represent the title for instance are, I think, the most iconic or memorable parts of the film. In telling the plot through emoji, I focused on individual scenes represented on separate lines.

Interestingly, Kress (2005) discusses how different modes of representation each have their own qualities that define their use. For example, in the written mode of representation the sequence of words is very important for meaning making and readers are dependent on the specific order an author has laid out. However, with respect to images, the elements chosen for representation are presented simultaneously (Kress, 2005). What is to be said of the affordances of emoji? In my emoji story, I’ve taken advantage of the affordances of the written word, in that the emoji need to be viewed sequentially, at least line by line. However, this isn’t as clear cut if we’re to just look at each singular line of my story. For instance, I need the reader to view the second line of my story sequentially, however for the ninth line I need the reader to take in the images simultaneously. What about the title? It doesn’t require sequential reading, nor does it really require viewing the images simultaneously. For the most part I could have put the emoji in any order, however I do need the reader to group some of the emoji together as one item; the red circle, the pill, and the blue circle need to be tethered together as one image rather than three separate images.

When trying to depict narrative with emoji, there is also a clash between the conventional sequencing of words with respect to objects and actions and the fixed directionality of specific emoji. Take a look at line ten in my emoji story and consider the meaning that you make. Who is shooting whom in that sentence? The toy gun emoji is in a fixed position. Contextually, we know the direction that a gun fires and those on the barrel end of a gun are on the receiving end of a bullet. However, as Kress (2005) notes, the first position in a written sequence has specific meaning. It could mean that the person placed in the first position is causing or responsible for the action. With respect to this emoji story, is the first person in line ten being shot at or are they the one doing the shooting? In other words, does the direction of the image (the toy gun) take precedence for meaning making, or does the linear sequence afforded to sentence structure take precedence?

In Bolter’s (2001) discussion of picture writing, he makes an important point about its lack of narrative structure; “the picture elements extend over a broad range of verbal meanings: each element means too much rather than too little” (p. 59). Conversely, Kress (2005) describes words as being vague and empty of meaning without a reader to interpret them. If both text and pictorial depictions are vague, then perhaps the meaning making magic happens when they are combined. Personally, I can relate to using emoji to enhance my written word in casual conversations through text. Because I have been told I have a blunt style of written communication (I just don’t see the need for a lot of formality and exclamation marks), my tone is often misinterpreted. If I throw in an emoji or two I can quickly convey that I mean no trouble. Likewise, I have been known to clarify the tone of a text by recording myself reading the text with the intended tone. Consider this very real text exchange between myself and my younger sister (for context, my sisters and I were trying to virtually meet up, but having scheduling conflicts). 

Me: You live your life. Join us whenever the scheduling works out for you! 

Sister: you sound sarcastic AF

In her defense, I can see how my message changes significantly with tone. My intended tone was meant of support and flexibility. I ended up sending a voice recording in order to speak the text as intended. In text messaging we augment our writing with emoji, gifs, voice recordings, and the tapback feature on individual text bubbles on iPhones. I’m reminded of Kress (2005, p.17):

As one effect of the social and the representational changes, practices of writing and reading have changed and are changing. In a multimodal text, writing may be central, or it may not; on screens writing may not feature in multimodal texts that use sound-effect and the soundtrack of a musical score, use speech, moving and still images of various kinds. Reading has to be rethought given that the commonsense of what reading is was developed in the era of the unquestioned dominance of writing, in constellation with the unquestioned dominance of the medium of the book.

Makes me wonder about the representational changes of reading and writing in the dominance of the medium of the smartphone. 

References

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). The breakout of the visual. In Writing space: computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Routledge. (pp.47-76).

Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and Learning. Computers and Composition 22(1), 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004