Multimedia Scholarship for the Twenty-First Century

There is little argument that, in an era dominated by the Internet and ubiquitous satellite television . . . by the cell phone with voice activation, wireless Web access, e-mail, and PC interconnectivity . . . by the car with on-board GPSenabled computer, satellite music, and radio . . . by the everexpanding universe of electronic games . . . immersive environments . . . 3D simulations . . . not to mention the growing roles of the PC and the pocket-sized computer, we are connected to some form of media in nearly every aspect of modern life. Constantly expanding and merging multimedia carries the messages of society. Gathered together on screens and beamed through space, the resulting array of sounds, images, text, interactivity, and movement have become the building blocks of twenty-first-century communication. In the past, we have advocated for an expanded concept of literacy, one that recognized this reality and acknowledged multimedia as a primary vernacular for today’s society. Our underlying premise was, and still is, that to be literate today one must understand how strategically chosen and juxtaposed