Description
Book SynopsisThe dissemination of desktop publishing and web authoring software has allowed nearly everyone in industrialized countries to combine verbal and visual symbols into text. Serious multimodal projects often demand extensive teamwork, especially in the workplace. But how can collaboration engaging such different traditions of expression be conducted effectively? To address this question, Envisioning Collaboration traces the composing processes of expert graphic artists and writers preparing advertising campaigns to retain a vital national account. It examines the influences on individual and dyadic composing processes of what Csikszentmihalyi terms the domain, in this case the disciplinary knowledge of advertising, and the field, in this case the surrounding economic conditions and client, vendor, customer, and agency executive gatekeepers.
Based on a 460-hour participant-observation and intensive computerized data analysis, Envisioning Collaboration is the first book to me
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1: Introductory Framework and Overview
Conceptual Framing
Contextual Framing
Overview of the Study and Completion of the Framework
CHAPTER 2: Ping-Pong, Part I: Collaborative Brainstorming of an “Insight-Intensive” Team
First Ad Concepting Session 2/14: Forming a Mental Picture
Summary of Artist-Writer Brainstorming
CHAPTER 3: Ping-Pong, Part II: Development, Elaboration, and Evaluation of Concepts by an “Insight-Intensive” Team
Neil’s Composing Lines 2/14
February 15 Evaluation of Lines Meeting: Customer Supplants Client
Merging Pictures and Words: 2/16-2/22
Evolution of a Good Idea: The “Lawns are Our Life” Campaign
Tip-Ball Evaluative Meeting 2/22/02: “I’m Sure We’ll See a Lawnmower in Here Real Soon”
Second Tip-Ball Meeting 2/27/02: “Romance the Product”
3/6 Tip-Ball Meeting: The End of the Lines and a New Assignment
Case Conclusion
CHAPTER 4: “We Had One Idea That We Liked a Lot”: The Invention of a Preparation- and Evaluation-Intensive Team
The Copywriter
The Artist
Overview of Composing Processes
Preparation and Preliminary Ideas
Brainstorming Session
CHAPTER 5: Less Divergence than Convergence: Analysis of a Preparation- and Evaluation-Intensive Team’s Invention and the End of the Hunt
Summary of Artist-Writer Brainstorming
Concept Development and Tip-Ball, 2/15-22
2/22-27 Tightening Up
Verbal-Visual Cognition: Assimilation and Accommodation in the Dyadic Mind
CHAPTER 6: Collaboration Envisioned
Initial Verbal-Visual Invention Predominantly Concerned with Visual
Rhetorical Elements in Verbal-Visual Composing
Comparison of Sequences of Invention of Artist-Writer Teams
Comparison of Collaboration Styles: Assertive vs. Supportive
Dyadic Self-Evaluation
The Pause That Refreshes and Other Varieties: Comparison of Pauses in Dyadic Composing Processes
Dyad’s Conflict Management beyond Dismissal Pauses
Efficient Principles of Concept Invention: Verbal-Visual Topoi
Audience Analysis by Dyads, Artists, and Writers
Mindfulness in the Collaborative Efforts
Dyadic vs. Large-Group Productivity
Contribution of the Study to Existing Models of Verbal-Visual Collaboration
The Roles of Concepts and Layout in Group Assimilation and Accommodation
Questions for Further Research
Recommendations for the Practice, Training, and Teaching of Verbal-Visual Collaboration
Appendix: Methods
Data Gathering
Data Analysis
Mode of Representation
Locating the Ethnographer
Works Cited
Author-Subject Index
List of Figures
List of Tables
