A Multimodal Framework for Computer Mediated Learning: The Reshaping of Curriculum Knowledge and Learning

Point of view is also produced by the kind of ‘contact’ established between the
viewer and the represented people or objects (with human characteristics such as
eyes). Many pictures show people who look directly at the viewer. In this way they
make contact with the viewers, establish an (imaginary) relation with them. Kress and
Van Leeuwen (1996) call these ‘demand images’, in which the people in the picture
symbolically demand something from the viewer. Without this kind of imaginary
contact the viewer looks quite differently at the people inside the picture frame. They
observe them, in a detached way, and impersonally, as though they are specimens in a
display case. Kress and van Leeuwen call such pictures ‘offers’, that is an offer of
information is made.

Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) classify the realism of images, or ‘coding
orientations’ in three ways, as naturalistic, scientific, or sensory (or a combination of
features of these). A naturalistic coding orientation presents that which is represented
as ‘how it (actually) is; how you can see it in the world’ resting on the most
commonly available, naturalising technology of photography. If an image displays
more sharpness, more colour saturation, or a deeper perspective than the average
colour photo it begins to look ‘more than real’ what ICress and van Leeuwen call
sensory coding orientation and Goffman calls ‘hyper-real’ (Goffman, 1979).
Scientific coding orientation on the other hand is based not on what things look like
in a specific situation, and from a specific angle but on how things are in general or
according to some deeper, 'hidden' truth. The scientific image probes beyond the
surface and abstracts from detail. There often is no background, detail is simplified or
left out, and colour and depth may be regarded as superfluous. These are means of
expression that ensure that reality from the point of view of naturalism is here
regarded as unreal and irrelevant. Throughout chapters Four, Five and Six I explore
the representation of realism on screen.

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