http://drive.google.com/open?id=1Kuiu71VjINW9ge5RRBa6HCGJ-Gbq0Ilz
Hi, I’m Essence Smith and today I will be analyzing The Paris Review, a multi-modal digital and print publication that inhabits a variety of reading material, such as fiction, poetry and photography, while also incorporating interviews with various authors and artists to promote their work. The modes that I will distinguish are visual, gestural, spatial, aural and linguistic, and together these attempts to attract middle to upper-class people who like to read in their spare time, however, the website is visually unappealing and not user-friendly.
Starting off with the front page, visually we are met with a completely white background with grey and hot pink, scattered promotion boxes. This color scheme produces a more modern and look, while unfortunately harsh on the eyes, which could be harder for older people and others with vision problems to read. The colors may attract younger readers; however, the text is a Times New Roman style font, aiming to look sophisticated but does not appeal to younger audiences. Gesturally, the user is able to click on various titles, pictures and navigation bars. The top navigation has a few drop-down boxes that further break-down specific content, and at the very top social media and a sign-in button for subscribers. Although, the abundance of advertisements are embedded into the webpages, some appearing at the top of the page and others plastered down the side of them. This may confuse the audience who may think they are clicking on an article when really, it’s a link to an ad which could have a risk of viruses. The spatial arrangement includes a lot of empty, white space, that if not filled or loaded with more ads would and will be completely blank.
The Video tab is slightly cluttered with links that may be overwhelming to new viewers. On this tab, the site has videos of interviews with quite a few authors, where you can click and listen without having to open a separate browser tab. This contributes to the aural mode and offers more accessibility to disabled viewers.
In the top navigation under The Review in the drop-down box there is a list of writing genres that the user can click on, and there is a page where you can filter by author last name and decade of when the writings were published on the side. And if you click on an excerpt, you can begin reading. However, in order to read the entire thing, you have to sign up and subscribe with your email, which to a casual viewer is not user-friendly. Linguistically, the type of language and writing style varies from author to author, however, the older decade publications will not appeal to younger audiences as the language used back then is very different than present times.
Overall, the modern and higher-end style of The Paris Review may be attracted to older, middle and upper-class readers, but mostly not younger ones. The white, pink and grey background is harsh on the eyes and would not appeal to anyone that needs glasses or has any vision issues. Although the website has multi-modal features, visually the website is not appealing and the amount of advertisements and promotions to subscribe to read is hardly new-user-friendly.
Sources
Ball, Cheryl E., et al. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. “Chapter 1: What Are Multimodal Projects?” Second Edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018. Print.
The Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020.