This post is written for Generative Content Creation based on chapter 10 from A Companion to Digital Humanities written by Rockwell and Mactavich and inteactive website "Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality"
With multimedia one thing is sure - it doesn't have a short correct one definition. There are many details "multimedia" has to have, but there are too many and different ones can be shown in different multimedia tools. For example multimedia games can be free but also cost a lot and demand latest technological tools to be playable. Multimedia art can have human as part of its' interaction to be able to show its' interactivity and use different media channels.
Rockwell and Mactavich take multimedia as their main research field, they try to define what it is. They use different previous theories and figure out what is missing from these theories. They propose their own one but leave doors open to further investigation based on development of new technology.
For Rockwell and Mactavich it's important to look at the history of media to see when and where "multimedia" made its first steps. Manovich in his book "The Language fo New Media" doesn't directly investigate what multimedia is, but from his interpretation it seems he takes also early movies as part of direct multimedia. On the other hand Mactavich and Rockwell don't agree with it. For them taking pictures and mixing them together into moving pictures - movie, is not enough to have multimedia.
Developing multimedia uses "interaction" a lot, but it's also important to understand and define what is interaction and interactivity. We probably all agree it's needed to have some level of participation from human while human-computer interaction is happening - but how much? And is one sided from human- to computer interaction enough or should there come back communication form the computer as well.
Rockwell and Mactavich have built up their article logically and in a simple way to convince reader and guide the reader through the path of logical conclusion for multimedia. Their article together with Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality gives a truthful historical overview of multimedia. The webpage with it's pictures and links gives access to further information and understanding. Its part of multimedia itself.
Multimedia article by Rockwell and Mactavich is written in 2004, as it's 2010 currently I would say that 6 years is a long time in this field where technology is part of theory. When Rocwell and Mactavich talk about types of multimedia, the list would be longer today including education, advertisement, entertainment or even engineering (Wikipedia). It shows how different media is more common in different fields so that we can talk about multimedia in there.
In the end of the article Rockwell and Mactavich ask what are the Academic issues we could research about Multimedia. They propose Best Practices in Multimedia production, Game criticism and Interactivity, Theories and histories of Multimedia. I would also add an important concept - how multimedia with its' interaction changes the perception of surroundings for people and how it interacts or changes the communication with other people or groups. The social network webpages that are so popular now, also carry media with itself, whether its made by the one who shares it or not - it can be video music, letter with pictures, online games and many other things. I would be interested how much it gives to a person - even if the reality feeling stays, you know what happens in virtual world and what in "real world", but you still can get real emotions out of the communication with other people or probably even computer. As multimedia is developing together with technology, and more and more communication and interaction ways are open for people it would be quite interesting to research the basic needs human have and how they are fulfilled within changing environments.
For conclusion, the articles from Mactavich and Rockwell, the interactive webpage and book by Manovich were good material to get more familiar with the concept of multimedia. Although we use the word multimedia often we don't so much think of where it comes from or what it is. Therefore it's good to take some time off and read the history and theories over it. It raises further questions, where does it go from here or what else is possible.
References:
A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/ Chapter 10: Multimedia Geoffrey Rockwell and Andrew Mactavish
Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality
The Language of New Media (1999), Lev Manovich
Multimedia, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia
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