Multimodal Analysis and Digital Technology

" Assessments of change, dynamics, and cause and effect are at the heart of thinking and explanation. To understand is to know what cause provokes what effect, by what means, at what rate. How then is such knowledge to be represented? " (Tufte, 1997: 10) The aim of this paper is to explore possible directions for advancing multimodal analysis through the use of digital technology. Historically, the impact of technology on knowledge is evident from the introduction of the printing press in the late fifteenth century, which led to the close study and subsequent development of mathematics and science (Eisenstein, 1979). Today, " computerization turns media into computer data " (Manovich, 2001: 45). The recursive nature of the computerisation process, where " images scatter into data, data gathers into images " , (Galison, 2002: 322) permits the visual display of data flow which is experienced over time, " be it in science, statistics, architecture, design, digital art, or any combination of these " (Paul, 2003: 175). There are few constants in the digital environment where everything is variable and open to manipulation and recontextualisation. However,