Communications in the Spider-Verse

Screenshot of Miles on top of a building from Into the Spider-Verse

Animation and video have long been the best medium for communication. The visual appeal is able to capture and hold audiences. Animation can educate and provide pertinent details to audiences in an effective manner. As our tools change, so does the way people communicate with one another. 

Animation can be something that narrates, instructs, or explains. The Spider-Verse is a visual cornucopia that continues the human tradition of storytelling. Giving its viewers an imaginative experience when exploring the story of the main character: Miles Morales. 

People connect and relate to the characters they see in film and media.

The most prevalent form of storytelling is considered the ever-present 'superhero' stories. 

Screenshot of Miles falling from taking his leap of faith

Media Theories to Consider with Animation

• Cultivation Theory: media as an important source of information and entertainment that viewers cannot escape the gradual encroachment into their lives.
• Spider-Verse: cultivates new viewers of superhero films while cementing the dedication of older audiences. 
• Phenomenistic Approach: how media generates a stimulus to which the audience might respond.
• Spider-Verse: an audience is given a visual experience when seeing the film; generates a stimulus-response from the audience; members could feel awed by the animation and be more responsive to the story being told. 
• Uses and Gratifications: considers how media is used to fulfill the needs of its users
• Spider-Verse fulfills the need to experience a superhero story, a concept that is a powerful influence in media consumption and exploration
• McLuhan Medium Theory: society is shaped by the media technologies that are available to it. Media is an extension of ourselves and our senses. The medium through which a message is sent to its receiver dictates the power of that message 
• Animation as a medium to communicate messages to its receiver. A form of cold media that engages its audience
• Spider-Verse as a new form of animation that retells the superhero story behind Miles Morales using various kinds of visual storytelling techniques