Michael Wesch created a great video to explain what Web 2.0 is. The story gets vividly across.
I suggest a simple exercise: watch it again, but this time, try without the music and try to identify the means of expressions.
Here is what I identified: write and erase text on paper; write, select, delete text and click on links on screen. Terribly simple. There are no spoken words. If I would describe it to you without you seeing the video, you would probably say it’s nothing interesting.
What makes it interesting, then? Is it sentencing? Well, take a look at the transcript of the movie. Most of the sentences are rather simple, but some are quite smart. However, they do not make for much of a prose, and the story is certainly more then those sentences.
What makes the big difference is the mapping between the representation and the presentation:
It is this mapping that brings a smart meaning to the written sentences.
Representation is semantics. Presentation is syntax. Representation bares meaning. Presentation carries meaning to the other side.
Some believe that presentation comes as a layer on top of representation. Some also believe that a great story is made with a fancy presentation.
I believe detaching the representation from its presentation leads to a rupture that makes the audience too aware of the story being told. I believe that a story has a chance to greatness only when the audience identifies itself with the story, and that, in turn, happens only when presentation and representation are congruent.
p.s. I first saw the above movie about a month ago. Since then, it was pointed to me several times and I saw it posted on several different blogs.
Getting through is difficult. But, if you do get through, you get noticed and remembered.