The main challenges of creating the multimodal project came from the desired audience and framing of the message. The audience could have been directed at either professors or students in higher education. Deciding on the audience became the most important factor of the multimodal composition because it would shape the design philosophy of my flier. I decided to focus on students as a primary audience. However, in designing the actual flier, I realized the professorial community could be considered a secondary audience. By superficially reading the dialogue, the message is still easily interpreted.
The second challenge was framing the message, which I decided to capture in a picture. I used the feeling of oppression and turned it into a visible and expressible action. Additionally, adding the Pokémon reference made my message more palatable to the audience. That design choice was made during the peer review process under a recommendation from Cory.
The premise of my message came from the overwhelming feeling students holding minority opinions feel while discussing controversial topics. They can feel overwhelmed by more popular opinions, which can create an environment where only one “voice is heard.” This violates the entire premise of a college classroom as a safe place for everyone to learn and be heard in the context of an educational setting.
The board in the background is supposed to emphasize the need for professors to facilitate topics that produce controversy. It directly references the professor and the sentiment felt by students with the minority opinion. The picture with the two classmates conveys the feelings of oppression generated by discussions without proper facilitation. The “oppressed” individual on the right displays shock and fear, while the “oppressor” demonstrates determination. This is supplemented by the “stats” underneath each person. Disproportionate levels and differences in ratings (the partial red bar compared to the full green bar) show the power differential because of un-facilitated discussions and poorly run classrooms.
The purpose of utilizing this format is to relate to the main audience, students. The lower half of the screen is pulled from the Pokémon video games from the late 20th -21st century, their childhood. A limitation of the format comes from the familiarity required. For the flyer to work, an individual would have to recognize the format to capture his/her attention. However, according to Polygon, a popular video game website, 260 million copies of the Pokémon series of games have been sold since 1996. Therefore, there should be a lot of people familiar with the format, however, it wouldn’t be universal.
The distribution would be in hallways and staircases around college campuses. Ideally, the fliers would be pinned to cork boards at those locations. Hallways and staircases in lecture halls are frequented by both faculty and students, alike. People would just have to recognize the popular format in order to be drawn in. Additionally, the flier could be distributed by student organizations related to politics: College Republicans, Turning Point USA, College Democrats, etc. The premise of their distribution would be to encourage their fellow students to listen to each other to ensure all perspectives are taken into consideration.