In most articles I read, advertisement or commercial, they always seem to have a way of drawing me in. Whether it be from the over exaggerated acting, overly bright colors, or a genuine story, the people who produce them have determined a way to secure our awareness.
Creators consistently use a very impactful tool called multimodality. In utilizing this tool, they capture the attention of their audience and stimulate all of their senses to communicate their message in the most efficient way possible. Multimodality incorporates a variety of resources including photos and diagrams, bright colors, font styles, and music to create a piece of work that makes the experience fully and sensorially enjoyable. (“Multimodality”) This is probably why high school science and history textbooks have so many diagrams and photos; they help to make the learning experience that more invigorating.
After watching the United Airlines Safety Video, I experienced the effect of multimodality and how it can be used to negatively impact the communication of a message.
Normally, the efforts of an airline safety video is to emphasize proper behavior one should have when on the aircraft, how to handle yourself during an emergency, and where to find the materials needed to deal with the emergency. Although video of this nature can be pretty boring, yet informative, it must be provided to ensure the safety of everyone on board.
Due to the stigma that most safety videos have, United saw the opportunity to make their safety video more stimulating, while capturing the culture of the many places they travel. Throughout the video, the flight attendants read off all of the normal safety procedures, but to a background of different countries. In one shot, an attendant was talking about smoking in the aircraft in an Indian Market, while another spoke about breathing masks in a German celebration. I think that United had positive intentions in mind, but I don’t think the two messages go hand in hand. They saw a way to use multimodality to excite the passenger, and keep them focused, but it in fact seemed to take away from the message and promote something that wasn’t relevant in this situation.
The video barely referenced the actual aircraft and where certain safety features would be located. The background in each instance was very distracting with bright colors and loud sounds, making it difficult to focus on what they were saying, especially in the opening scene during the festival. This is most likely the only instruction and information most people traveling will receive, and it is important to make sure that they are able to comprehend what they are saying.
They also played into very stereotypical aspects of each country that was mentioned and didn’t fully represent all who live and travel to these different countries. It was very commercialized, playing into the fun, exciting moments of traveling and were focused on the tourism aspect; they use our knowledge a culture in a superficial way, just so that they people watching could relate. Even though they utilized multimodality, the execution wasn’t effective for the topic at hand. Multimodality is about using different representations or modes of communication to stimulate the interplay of a specific idea.
In a multimodality article from College Composition and Communication, it states, “(multimodality) reminds us… of the many ways we create meaning.” (Multimodality) I think that United actually took away from the meaning of the video as well as the interpretation and intention of the video. It did not effectively inform the passengers of what to do in an emergency situation. The language and tone of this video definitely did not encompass the seriousness of the topic; as the article, “Concepts we Live By” says,”We act according to the way we see things.” (Lakoff, Johnson 5) Since this video doesn’t appear to be taking airplane safety seriously, why should they expect those watching to take it seriously as well?
An article by New York magazine discussed why airlines are using these tactics. In the article, they shared that although the main point of these videos is to talk about safety, their secondary purpose if for marketing, revealing that they have an underlying motive to keep us watching. This emphasizes that they aren’t taking the safety aspect as seriously as they could be.
The casualness of this video doesn’t stress the seriousness of being knowledgeable about safety enough to make an impact. Multimodality is meant to enhance a piece of work, and intertwine the uses to express one united message. This video blurred the execution and the message.
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