Multimedia is one of those terms with slippery meanings. Until you start delving into it, it seems obvious what it is. As you seek to describe it, it has a tendency to slip away. Here is my take on it.
Multimedia refers to a collection of tools and techniques employed to blend two or more different communications modes into a single, unified message.
I confess that I have no source for this but use my experience with multimedia, its development, and its application to derive it.
For me the term does not mean some particular outcome but the process of constructing a message. I can’t point to a movie, or graphic, or video and say “Oh, that’s multimedia.” Rather, I look at the combination of video, speech, and text as a kind of meta-unit that might comprise a “multimedia production.”
These tools and techniques are endemic. For example, a textbook these days is rarely a literal text book. Our book for this class contains photographs and diagrams used to enhance the message of the words. Some texts have CD’s inside, or links to supporting websites. When a teacher stands in front of a class, s/he uses a variety of media — text, audio, graphical — to explicate the lesson’s meaning.
From that perspective, it’s important to understand not only the various kinds of media that can be combined but also how those media are used together to create a single message. Those are the subjects we’ll be exploring this semester as we discuss the various media archetypes.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
That makes sense. The combination of various tools allows for a clearer, more productive communication. In this case, there are many other items that could be considered as multimedia and it is solely limited to technology based items. Interesting.
January 31st, 2009 at 9:36 am
I think that I had this all wrong after I have read and thought about your post. I was thinking of the final product rather than the process to create a product. Matbe this is why it was difficult for me to come up with a definition.