From my early days as a graduate student I have studied the nature and impact of various media. It quickly became apparent that each medium inherently had a specific set of natural characteristics that literally determines how to use it for maximum impact.
For example, merely using print makes you aware it is a rational medium. Structure is critical, and the basic “essay style” quickly reveals itself as the most natural way to approach it. Thus, you almost instinctively build your communication with a beginnning, a body, and a conclusion. The beginning is a preview of what’s to come, the body is an explained list of key points, and the conclusion is a brief summary. Ignoring all this usually results in content that rambles.
Using television rapidly reveals that it does not “like” detail. On television too many facts become boring. It was a hard lesson for me to learn. In my early days I produced a lot of television, and for a long time I could not figure out why my programs were not a big success. As I experimented with the medium, however, I discovered that television “likes” to draw you into dramatic experiences. It is a picture medium, and the more dramatic the situations the better. My mistake was using print-style thinking when producing an image-based medium.
But, what about the internet? This “new” medium brings both images and print together on the same screen. And it also provides opportunities to search for as much content as each user desires. It is a multi-media, engaging medium, influenced by both print and television. Thus, one learns by using it that internet images should be both dramatic and concise, and that text should be lean and concise.
I have even felt “the pull” of the nature of the internet when writing this blog. The longer I write the more it seems to be “telling me” to stay lean in the use of my language, develop my content logically, and above all, be concise.
Larry D. Lauer 