166 Reviews

Reviews

guage-as-writing will increasingly be text do not reflect the patterns or skills

Literacy in the New Media Age Gunther displaced by image in many domains of associated with alphabetic text. Meaning
Kress (2004) London: Routledge ISBN: publication communication.’’ is increasingly embedded in an image or
0-415-25356-X d25.95 186 pp in a non-linear combination of image and
print, rather than in what can be decoded
He goes on to suggest that:
from the print alone. This has significant
consequences for the ways in which we
This is not an easy book to come to terms ‘‘The combined effects on writing of the read and produce texts, and for the skills
with. The language and style are not for dominance of the mode of image and of and knowledge we must each bring to
the faint-hearted. Interestingly, on many bear. The particular tool-set that he draws
the medium of the screen will produce
levels, there is the sense that with this upon, and that he considers most appro-
book, Kress is taking his turn in a
deep changes in the forms and functions
of writing. This in turn will have priate to the emergent landscape of multi-
conversation begun a decade ago that modal texts, is semiotics, and much of the
continues to this day. profound effects on human, cognitive/
affective, cultural and bodily engage- book theorises meaning-making for digi-
In the mid-1990s, Gunther Kress and a tal texts via the use of these tools.
range of other literacy theorists and re- ment with the world, and on the forms
Always anchored in the purpose of
searchers including James Gee, Norman and shapes of knowledge.’’ (p. 1)
being literate in contemporary society
Fairclough, and Courtney Cazden – the (although he may prefer to describe it
New London Group – began to engage This is core. While concentrating on the differently), Kress is seeking a framework
systematically with the implications of minute details of reading and writing as for describing and guiding literacy peda-
broad social, cultural, and technological meaning making processes, Kress con- gogy. Here he refers to the principles of
change for notions of literacy (1996). tinues to make connections to broader ‘design’. Continuing the pathway estab-
Although coming from quite diverse the- social, economic, and technological change. lished all those years ago in his collabora-
oretical and philosophical positions, the This ability to connect and reconnect tions with the New London Group, Kress
group found consensus around the notion makes this book powerful and, at the argues that ‘‘it is no longer responsible to
that literacy is a social practice with same time, challenging. This ability to let children experience school without
differentiated social outcomes. Further- move back and forth between various basing schooling on an understanding of
more, they agreed that contemporary lenses is demonstrated very early in the the shift from competent performance to
society must come to terms with rapid book, when Kress argues for more clarity design as the foundational fact of con-
cultural, political, and technological and precision around the notion of ‘lit- temporary social and economic life . . . in
change, and that consequently, to be of eracy’. We are, he suggests in danger of multimodal communication, the concept
any real use to those who were not already losing all sense of meaning as we increas- of design is the sine qua non of informed,
groomed for social and economic success ingly encounter visual literacy, political reflective and productive practice’’ (p. 37).
by virtue of birthright, literacy pedagogy literacy, media literacy, scientific literacy, A designer asks ‘‘what is needed now, in
needed to be cognisant of these broader assessment literacy – an almost endless this one situation, with this configuration
shifts. Literacy in the new Media Age sees list of literacies. Within a framework of of purposes, aims, audience, and with
Kress revisiting and expanding many of semiotics and communicative practice, these resources, and given my interests in
the ideas associated with the New London Kress calls for a much more localised this situation?’’ (p. 49). This is a view of
Group, with particular attention to the and limited view of literacy: ‘‘literacy is the ‘literate citizen’ and his/her concerns
shifts towards digital texts and on-screen the term to use when we make messages and meaning-making processes quite un-
communicative practices that have been using letters as the means of recording like those associated with print-based
picking up pace since the mid-1990s. that message’’ (p. 23). At the same time, he literacies. Kress is suggesting no less than
In the decade since the original meeting continues to link literacy and communi- an entirely new theory of literacy that
of the New London Group, a rapidly cative practices to social outcomes and the hinges on the making and dissemination
expanding body of work has emerged, ability of individuals to make and dis- of meaning and, importantly, which links
chronicling the shift from the centrality of seminate meaning in a social context, directly to the needs and skill sets of the
print-based literacy practice to activities always cognisant of the changing needs young in contemporary societies. A diffi-
and skills linked to on-screen texts and of citizens in a changing world (see for cult and challenging book, but, never-
literacies. In the main, this body of work example, chapter 10). theless, a timely contribution to an
remains descriptive, attached to argu- While my own ideological position on ongoing discussion to which we should
ments that as educators we need to expand the politics of the term ‘literacy’ takes me all attend.
our literacy horizons and pedagogies, in a different direction at this time, his
rather than to explorations of theoretical attempt to build clarity and some sense of
frameworks useful in understanding the delineation around key concepts is laud-
profound changes taking place. But this able and entirely sensible. While I am not
recent work by Gunther Kress is a master yet willing to give up the fight over the
class in semiotics and a broad conception term ‘literacy’, Gunther Kress is much Reference
of literacy, as he encourages us to journey cannier. He has out-manoeuvred this
with him through his own theorisation of debate to some extent by giving up the NEW LONDON GROUP (1996). A peda-
the making of meaning via these new notion of ‘literacy’ to basic skills around gogy of multiliteracies: Designing social
multimodal practices and texts. print encoding. His concern is to move the futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, pp.
He premises this particular work with debate onto newer ground and into a 60–92.
the claim that: productive engagement with the shift in
‘communicative load’ from printed text to
image. He argues that the information
‘‘Language-as-speech will remain the contained and the reading pathway fol- Victoria Carrington
major mode of communication; lan- lowed through new forms of multimodal University of Plymouth

r UKLA 2005. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.