Say you are asked to give a multimedia presentation for your company. Or you are invited to attend a multimodal talk on an important topic. The terms “multimedia” and “multimodal” are hot ones these days when it comes to talking about presentations.
I have to confess that these terms remind me of something similar. Have you ever seen cooking shows where a chef makes something amazing and then gives it a name that is impossibly long and hard to understand? It’s like the more big words he can tack on, the more he will convince the judges that what they are about to eat is delicious.
Along the same lines, labeling your presentation “multimedia” or “multimodal” is an effort to tell your audience ahead of time that you have worked hard to make your presentation enjoyable and engaging. But what do these terms actually mean? And why is it important to develop multimedia and multimodal presentations?
Defining Multimedia & Multimodal
Aside from a small distinction, these terms mean pretty much the same thing—that the presentation includes multiple methods to communicate. The term “multimedia” is an older term, first used in the 1960s and 1970s to explain the way in which communication was changing with technology. But Tay Vaughan further defined the term in his text, Multimedia: Making It Work. Vaughan said for something to be “multimedia,” it must have at least two of the following elements:
- Text
- Images
- Sound
- Animation
- Video
So in addition to a speaker standing up and talking, a multimedia presentation might use a video clip, music, graphics on a screen, or even handouts.
The term “multimodal” is much newer. Having been coined in the 1990s, this term signifies that as humans, we use many different “modes” to make meaning. So whereas “multimedia” focuses more on the technology and tools we use, “multimodal” focuses a bit more on the meaning we are trying to make via different methods. All that to say, most people use them interchangeably, and with good reason.
Why We Love Multimedia/Multimodal Presentations
If we continue to hear these terms, there must be something attractive about them, right? But whether or not you choose to use these terms to promote your presentations, every presentation you give should be, by definition, multimedia or multimodal. Here’s why. The University of Illinois Springfield gives the following list to help explain why both speakers and audience members enjoy varied presentations:
- They promote more interaction.
- They portray information in multiple ways.
- They allow projects to resonate with different and diverse audiences.
- They help the audience focus better since more senses are being used to process the information.
- They allow the speaker to be more flexible and creative in the way he/she presents the information.
This list isn’t exhaustive. The main reason we should develop multimedia presentations is because that’s how we communicate these days. Anything less simply feels like something less.
So when you become a multimodal speaker or develop a multimedia presentation, you use all the tools at your disposal to help communicate in a way that is both clear and engaging. And that sounds like a pretty delicious goal.
