This article presents a model and a case study of the narrative structures that are present in the interactive media design of multimedia applications in the mass media. As basic categories for the history and structure of media, we employ the model of the modes of the physical, analog, and digital presentation/representation. In this case study of the online edition of the New York Times, we have the case of a newspaper that in the digital edition employs multi-media applications. Contrasting the traditional concept of “narrativity” with the current status quo of the digital media outlets, we will examine the specific conditions of the multimedia applications in the mass media with this sample case of the New York Times. As narrative structure of interactive design in multimedia for mass communication, we analyze the types of narrative media and general narrativity in the New York Times with the background of its processes of interactivity and media convergence.
In this article we discuss the digital image as a form of representation of likeness in the digital environment. The English word likeness entails the meaning of similarity that in the theory of rhetoric constitute persua-siveness. Likeness is an implicit and often taken for granted quality of the communicative performance of digital media. While the term image is a ty-pological classification, semiotic relations of the transfer of meaning can be described with the terms icon and simulacrum. We show their presence in the digital environment tracing their tradition of their function regarding the establishing of likeness to philosophical ideas. We exemplify with the case of the digital images as derivations from the portrait Mona Lisa that the appearance as an image of all what is displayed on the screen consti-tutes the specific likeness of digitality. The persuasiveness of digital images is in line with the theory of rhetoric in an exaggerated presence of the im-age as source of aesthetic perception with the sense of sight of the viewer.
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