|
Number of screens |
Less than 50 % of |
50 to 69 % of screen |
70 % and over of |
|
6 |
13 |
20 |
Table 4.1: Percent of screen allocated to image by the number of screens
Writing on the CD-ROM, as it appears on screen, is displayed in a white rectangular
block, the edges of which are roughly drawn. It has been argued that the visual
elements of the screen in CD-ROM versions of books distract students and that visual
and written elements should be separated (Graham, 1996). In contrast, this analysis
shows that the spatial relationship between image and writing as they appear on the
screens of the ‘Visual’ version of the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’ is itself a visual meaning
making resource. At the level of the screen as a visual entity, writing serves as a
visual element and in the first instance makes meaning at that level. In other words,
writing serves as a visual element, a block of ‘space’ which makes textual meaning
beyond it’s content. The move from page to screen brings with it a shift from the
organisational rules of the page to the organisational rules of the screen.' When
writing is present in the multimodal environment of new technologies its visuality is
foregrounded. This is a part of the wider tendency in which the use of the visual is
expanding. Indeed, written elements on screen are now considered by some to be
merely what cannot be done in images (Boulter, 1999). New technologies offer the
potential to 'recast modes' in ways which blur the boundaries between the visual and
the written. This shift to the visual is apparent in the ‘Novel as CD-ROM’.
The blocks of writing are positioned on the screen in different places: the left or right
side, along the bottom or top length of the screen, or in the top or bottom corner.
Depending both on the size and position of the block of writing different parts of the
image layered ‘beneath it’ are revealed or concealed. The position of a block of
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