Chapter 2: Multimedia – A Definition

Several Arbitrary Attempts

Multimedia started when the first piano was rolled into a silent movie house. Since then, multimedia, as the term seems to imply, has been defined exclusively as a combination of different media: Even scientists whose names are practically synonyms for multimedia, and who are largely responsible for developments in this field, take the definition of multimedia lightly. For Negroponte (1995), multimedia is simply a mixture of data on a digital basis: »bits commingle effortlessly. They start to get mixed up and can be used and reused together or separately. The mixing of audio, video, and data is called multimedia; it sounds complicated, but is nothing more than commingled bits« (18). multimedia is defined in a similar way by Feldman (1994): »multimedia is the seamless integration of data, text, images of all kinds and sound within a single, digital information environment« (4). According to this definition there would be some doubt whether interactive laserdisc systems should be counted as multimedia.

Data Systems Technology Criteria and Digitalization

These two definitions are mostly based on hardware technology or data systems technology criteria. Multimedia in this case means nothing more than a combination of digital data by a computer, or the technical integration of formerly separate data media on one digital data medium, e.g. a CD- ROM. But with such a definition, the following questions remain unanswered: From what point onwards can we speak of multimedia? With the parallel arrangement of analog and digital sources, like in the laserdisc with two displays controlled by one computer? Or not until the integration of analog and digital media, like in overlaying the video signal on a single computer display? Or even not until we have the originally analog source digitalized in a common data medium environment? Mere digitalization cannot be a valid yardstick for multimedia: even if several media are only presented in digital form, the interaction might be so restricted that the new medium is not significantly different from a video film, which nobody in all probability would call multimedia.

User Perspective: Multisensory Reception

Galbreath (1992) cites several definitions that in no way differ from the ones mentioned up to now. His own definition is also of this type: »It is a combination of hardware, software, and storage technologies incorporated to provide a multisensory information environment« (16). This definition contains two new elements: to the aspect of a mixture of data, Galbreath adds the aspect of the multisensory reception of these data. For him, multimedia is only constituted in the user’s perspective of perception. And he speaks of an »information environment«. But the term ‘information’ remains unexplained here, as in all the authors that lay claim to it. According to this definition, film is technically the best multimedia medium up to now, since it offers fluid pictorial movement with natural sound and leaves the viewer with a lasting sensory impression. But Galbreath again leaves open whether one should understand multimedia rather in the sense of »multiple media«, and whether the joint digital basis plays a part at all.

Information and Message

Just this, however, is the decisive criterion for Grimes and Potel (1991). They criticize that the media are »physically collocated, but not integrated« (49). Grimes and Potel not only look at the physical state of the data, but see the product born of the combination as a new entity: »multimedia creates new information by its ability to juxtapose data that were not otherwise adjacent« (50). Considering that only few applications meet this design demand, they arrive at the provoking statement: »We see a parallel between doing multimedia work today and making a film in 1923«. Nevertheless, they stick to their claim: »Well-integrated multimedia ensure a presentation with a wholeness that delivers a strong, clear message« (51). They provide the best argument for distinguishing between multiple media and multimedia themselves: a multimedia application printed on paper is no multimedia application any longer. In defining multimedia, both the integration of the media and the software are important: »Because multimedia does not only mean that photographs, video, and sounds come together on a CD-ROM; the result must be a binding overall cohesion. Only a meaningful combination supporting a subject matter has any appeal« [Bräuer, cited after Riehm/Wingert (1995), 146]. The aim of this integration is called »message« by Grimes and Potel. If we include technical software aspects in a definition of multimedia, the combination of different media thus turns into an information environment with a »message« to the user.

Computer-Controlled Processing

»Not every combination of media justifies the use of the term multimedia« (16), Steinmetz (1993) warns. He, too, only has the aspect of data combination in mind (17). For him, multimedia only exists in a combination of discrete and continuous data: »A multimedia system is characterized through computer-controlled, integrated creation, manipulation, presentation, storing and communicating of independent information, which is coded in at least one continuous (time-dependent) and one discrete (time-independent) medium« (19). This definition emphasizes a third element apart from the type of data and sensory reception: the control and processing of data by a computer. But the concept of information contained in this definition is problematic: it does not contain any description of the relation of independent information units, merely that they can be combined through hardware and software technology. Terms like multiple media and multimedia are thus not sufficiently distinguished. Another question that remains is why exclusively discrete media should not constitute multimedia as well, why e.g. an electronic book with text and graphics (without sound, or sound that can be turned off), or a Kiosk system with still frames (without animations) should not be called a multimedia medium.

Symbolic Forms of Expression

Although the technical specification of data types seems to be in the foreground for many authors, one can hardly overlook that what is meant is really different kinds of information, because multimedia »involves more than the simple addition of new data types – simultaneous integration of a wide range of symbolic modes into a coherent framework is taking place« [Hodges/Sasnett (1993), 3]. Seen from the point of view of the multimedia developer, the media are symbolic modes of information. Hodges and Sasnett complement the developer’s perspective with the user’s perspective: From his point of view, the different channels are »modes of expression« (9), different symbolic forms of expression.

Information

The term information is used by many authors in the sense of fixed data units, which are transmitted between computer and user after the model of a simple transport from sender to receiver. Such a concept overlooks that information and knowledge only become active through the user’s actions, and only become relevant in the learner’s interpretation. A modelling of this process must therefore also include the constructs and reconstructions of the multimedia user. This argument points toward the circumstance that our concept of multimedia apparently also includes the user’s interaction with the program: »multimedia systems are not primarily defined by their data structures, but by the nature of their communication« [Mayes (1992a), 3]. In this very spirit, Parkes (1992) calls the term ‘interactive videodisc’ an »unfortunate misnomer« (97), because interactivity is a concept for user behaviour, not a characteristic of the videodisc system as such.

Interactivity

One aspect of the combination of independent media is overlooked by all the definitions cited up to now: through digitalization and computer manipulation, the sequentiality of the various media is cancelled, their sequence can be manipulated arbitrarily, and because of their integration in the computer, they can be accessed interactively by way of a user interface. The interaction between user and system is thus assigned a very important role: »Interaction is implicit in all multimedia. If the intended experience were passive, then closed-captioned television and subtitled movies would fit the definition of video, audio, and data combined« [Negroponte (1995), 70]. Without this interactive aspect, any definition of multimedia is insufficient. We should always speak of multimedia as an interactive medium.

As we can see, completely different categories are applied for classification: categories from information technology (multimedia consists of documents, multimedia consists of types of data), categories from software technology (multimedia consists of databases and network structures), categories from hardware technology (multimedia is a combination of computer and videodisc). Aspects of information theory are sometimes hinted at (information environment, message), sometimes the user is included into the definition as a criterion (perception, interactivity, multisensory perception). From the criticism of these definitions, the following criteria for multimedia have emerged up to now:

If we collect all these aspects in one definition, giving some of them a sharper outline in the process, i.e. that the data are multiple representations of interpretable information, and that the computer merely mediates the user’s access to this information, then we arrive at the definition that multimedia must be seen as an »interactive form of dealing with symbolic knowledge in a computer supported interaction«.

Hypermedia

A special problem in defining multimedia arises when the authors start out from the hypertext concept. Yankelovich, Haan et al (1988) see hypermedia as hypertext with multimedia additions: »Hypermedia is simply an extension of hypertext that incorporates other media in addition to text« (81). Mayes (1992a) follows this concept as well: »The latter refers to hypertext-like systems, characterized by their data access structures and differing from hypertext only in their use of other media, usually graphics or video« (3). Hypertext is a text-only system for these authors, while hypermedia – in contrast to hypertext – integrates several media. This would however leave the relation of hypermedia and multimedia an unresolved issue.

Authors that start out from multimedia primarily take the opposite route. For them, hypermedia – in contrast to multimedia – incorporates the basic construction principle of hypertext: »A hypermedia system contains the non-linear chaining of information which in a strict sense must exist in at least one continuous and one discrete medium« [Steinmetz (1993), 357]. Kuhlen (1991) takes a similar view: »The designation ‘hypertext’ […] currently rather discusses the methodical problems of the delinearization of text or the delinearized representation of knowledge, while the term ‘hypermedia’ at once evokes associations of the whole technical range of the media employed« (14).

Woodhead (1991) calls hypertext a subset of hypermedia, and hypermedia a subset of multimedia (3). In that case, multimedia would be the all-embracing term, and there would be no hypertext that was not also multimedia. But this is not the case, obviously, because one could not view hypertext as a text-only system then. On the contrary, hypermedia is a subset of hypertext, which is characterized by the fact that it contains not only text but also graphics and sound components [Hammond (1989)].

Nielsen (1990a) takes the opposite route and wonders when a multimedia system becomes a hypertext system: »The fact that a system is multimedia-based does not make it hypertext […] Only when users interactively take control of a set of dynamic links among units of information does a system get to be hypertext. It has been said that the difference between multimedia and hypermedia is similar to that between watching a travel film and being a tourist yourself« (10). A special subset of multimedia, then, is hypertext at the same time, and the decisive criterion is interactivity. If we collate both arguments, we arrive at the following definition: hypermedia is a subset of hypertext, and at the same time hypermedia is a subset of multimedia. It is probably better to view multimedia and hypertext as two independent entities with an intersection that might be called hypermedia.