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Low Modality
Killoran relies quite heavily (and astutely) on Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress’s "social semiotic" theory of modality and affinity. Killoran explains: "Irreverence, which abandons a close fidelity with reality, has a low modality. In the framework of Hodge and Kress’s social semiotics, modality is function of the relationship between the text producers and its receivers and, by extension, with the prevailing ‘system,’ a quality that Hodge and Kress call affinity (123)." (129). In other words, irreverent websites achieve parody by presenting a low modality with real institutional discourse and purpose; they do not display affinity with the modes of institutional discourse because they are outside the "prevailing system."