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How to do a Video Essay: Modes, MultiModality & Multiliteracies

An introduction to the video essay

Modes of Meaning and the New London Group
In 1996, the New London Group presented a theoretical manifesto of the connections between the changing social environment facing students and teachers and applied a new approach to literacy pedagogy "multiliteracies".

Multiliteracies is the concept of understanding information and the design of meaning through the manipulation of individual modes, these being: Linguistic Meaning, Visual Meaning, Audio Meaning, Gestural, Tactile and Spatial Meaning. Each mode has a different characteristic used for meaning-making, communication and representation of knowledge and ideas.

Multimodality is the combined use of several modes together and intentionally using a specific function of a mode to create a message for a purpose and audience. The New London Group manifesto was updated in 2009 to accommodate the expansion of modes bought about by new communication technologies.