[Air-L] Relationships between text and media objects

Daniel Jung jung at uib.no
Fri Aug 1 17:16:35 PDT 2014


Hi all,

I have a question, or a request for literature.

Short version: Is there a general taxonomy, or model, of 
text/image-relationships for web design?

Long version: In his excellent book "Information Design : An 
Introduction" (John Benjamins 2002), p. 40, Rune Pettersson postulates 
four relationships between text and media objects, such as images or film.

- redundant (similar information conveyed, such as sub-titles for TV)
- relevant (supplementing information)
- irrelevant (pictures and text and probably sound in TV programmes 
dealing with different things)
- contradictory (disastrous in information design, but possibly 
beneficial for persuasion)

This book describes a general framework and not specific design areas. 
The preface states explicitly that modern web design is not included.

I have been looking for a kind of general taxonomy of relationships 
between text and images in web design, but haven't found anything really 
satisfactory. I have found some novel-, or work-specific articles. One 
of the most interesting articles is Thomas Wartenberg, 'Wordy Pictures: 
Theorizing the Relationship between Image and Text in Comics' in 
Meskin's "The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach" (2011). In a 
critique of Scott McCloud, he claims four functions of text in comics: 
thought or speech; narration; pictorial element; sonic event. But this 
is too specifically targetted on comics.

I would like to see a model like Pettersson's, but more fleshed out, 
newer, and, above all, applied to (or coming from) web design. Does 
anyone have a pointer for me?

Thank you very much!
- Daniel




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