August 18th 2010

Made possible by emergent media technologies, new forms of public writing are now on the rise. Bullet points so often now replace full sentences; concept maps convey the structure of arguments. Layout, typography and colour are now as important as words once were in conveying meaning.

But are these technologies changing the way we think? Should we feel concerned about how this may affect what we have always known as literacy?

This free public lecture explores 'the new writing'. It considers how we can exploit opportunities in communication now being made possible, while considering how we should safeguard against degrading the richness of our written culture.

Theo van Leeuwen

Professor Theo van Leeuwen is Dean of the UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Science. He is known internationally for his research on visual communication, discourse analysis and multimodality. He has published eleven books on these subjects and is editor of the international journal Visual Communication.

Resources

• flyer (PDF 569k)
• audio recording (MP3 27.2 MB)
• presentation slides (PDF 2.4 MB)
• video (Opens video presentation) A transcript is available.

UTSPEAKS: is a free public lecture series presented by UTS experts discussing a range of important issues confronting contemporary Australia