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The Social Values of Multimedia

Problem Solving

When engaged in higher order skills such as comparison, analysis, inference and evaluation, the mind must carry out its problem processing in some symbol system. Howard Gardner's work on multiple-intelligences (1993a, 1993b) showed that academic skills with verbal language and math are but two important languages (media) for thought. His interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences play an important role in the interactive nature of multimedia use between others on the Internet. Other intelligences or languages of thought from Gardner's theory including spatial, bodily kinesthetic, musical, and naturalist provide an intellectual foundation for multimedia integration. That is, multimedia not only extends our cognitive range but often takes the thinker to new areas within which to range. 

Many sequences have been developed to provide a kind of scaffolding for the mind as its works through problems. Further, the different tools sets available for multimedia require sequences which are sometimes complex and relatively lengthy. Computer-based multimedia provides a constant fall-back position of help files, wizards and assistants which teach about and guide the user along these sequences. These assisting resources can be aware of the user's context at the computer and keep prompts and lists always on call to keep development of a composition solution moving forward. That is, computer-based multimedia enables more complex thinking because of the cognitive based support such software routinely provides. It was precisely this ability to extend and enrich human thought that gave writing cultures the upper hand over oral cultures.

Problems can also be seen as difficulties with a certain perspective. One of the most common ways to attack a problem is to change the perspective in some qualitative way. Multimedia capable teachers have a valuable means for enabling those changes. As composers of multimedia resources, teachers use change of perspective to meet the varied learning styles of different learners. Community leaders will find the same value in addressing communal concerns.
 

Politics & Learning- the Art of the Allocation of Resources

Is it effective? The evidence is both short term and long term. Beyond the more recent work of Okolo and Ferretti (1998), not only is there evidence of significant impact, but that such conclusions have held up for decades.  A Bertelsmann Foundation report prepared by Dr. Reeves of the University of Georgia provides a succinct summary of the issues related to scientific evidence. "Overall, fifty years of educational research indicates that media and technology are effective in schools as phenomena to learn both from and with." Finally, as with all educational and social science research, definitive proof is beyond our reach, but creative and technology-inclusive pedagogy is effective and within our reach (Reeves, 1998).

This question of effectiveness can also limit our thinking about multimedia. The effectiveness issue might be employed to mean the use of multimedia to teach the curriculum already in our curriculum standards, to teach what we have always been teaching. This is certainly useful. But, it fails to ask whether transformational possibilities exist.  Can we teach differently? Does the use of multimedia suggest or allow the teaching of different content? Should it transform the very meaning of "composition course" or writing class that is a staple of education at many levels?

As for the second issue, addressing the perspective problem involves finding a way to "think outside the box". A bike race provides a useful visual metaphor. In a bicycle race, one strategy for winning is to initiate a break-away. Using a burst of speed the biker tries to disappear ahead of the competition. Generally, those that wish to remain contenders must keep up with the break-away leader. Once these leaders disappear from view, this leaves competitors unable to gauge their progress against those out in front and invariably they set a slower pace by norming among themselves. This becomes a pace that generally puts them in a position to never catch the lead again. We must be careful that the norms established on a university campus or in school districts have a reality check with actual world use and development.

To the degree that relevance to the larger world beyond classroom education is important, in fact, multimedia capacity has become the cultural norm. Educational curriculum appears to have lost sight of the emphasis on multimedia in our culture. How else can we explain Cuban's report of educators' miserly integration of new forms of communication? It is the classroom that is the back of the pack anomaly. Educators look around at other classrooms and find it is not happening there either. It is important to look beyond the classroom norms for larger cultural norms and needs to find a more relevant perspective.

In reference to personal computer technology, multimedia capacity of some sort is generally an assumed feature of computers reaching the market beginning with 1997. Multimedia capacity has been a standard feature of Macintosh computers since 1984. Even more striking, multimedia forms of information have been the principal means of communication among a significant portion the world's population, with more news and information transferring between phone, radio, television and images than the written word, for a number of years. Television and movies in turn have dominated these other multimedia forms and the written word in terms of the number of hours school-aged children choose a particular medium. This is not to imply that teachers should promote television over the written word or other forms of communication. But video is just a prominent example of a powerful multimedia communication tool that teachers have historically not been empowered to compose with for their own purposes. Instead, teachers should have the capacity to compose with many media for educational needs as they see fit as they should with any medium that is heavily used by learners and by culture in general. Cultural attitudes continue to evolve. The market for multimedia games including video games is now a larger market economically that Hollywood films. DVD use is now a greater market than buying movie tickets.

An implication of of this analysis is that funding sources must continue to expand the portion of the budget that provides for multimedia hardware, software and training and the innovative pedagogy which incorporates it.

The Impact on Reading Skills

To educators that are highly dependent on text as the primary means of communication, it can be hard to accept the very powerful aspects of other media in our culture. By its nature, the very use of other media competes with time for enhancing ones skills with the medium of text. Obsession with the medium of print and text however is self defeating. Text is enhanced if one accepts the  inherent educational challenge to find ways to so meld all media that they reinforce the value of each other, such as reinforcing the value of text and its many efficiencies. We have accepted the value of this capacity without question with "early" readers, books that consist of primarily images with a touch of text. The goal must be to extend the metaphor of "early" readers to the full range of multimedia. That includes extending from minimal use to the full capacity of each medium, such as full length book or full length movie.

In fact, the Internet and the World Wide Web appear to moving in this direction. Effective use of the web with all its multimedia options requires significant amounts of reading. As our culture moves towards greater multicultural and multilingual requirements, so must our communication build on text literacy to reinforce the many positive social values of the full range of media.

Reinforcing Negative Social Values

With any powerful and creative force, there is also a dark side to its power. Under the guise of new technologies, old problems with sexuality, hate, truthfulness and more can and do re-emerge, a problem which requires continual vigilance. One of most disturbing is the use of media to desensitize our culture to violence. This occurs through not only the acceptance but the glorification of violence in movies, television and music. In many ways this is further proof of the capacity of new media to impact human culture.

This negative development is further magnified by training children and adolescents to kill in realistic simulations during computer games and video arcade games. Some of these games use forms of conditioning and training identical to or very similar to those used in police and military training to break the psychological instinct not to kill and replace it with government authority (Grossman, 1996). However, in these violent games marketed to children and teenagers there is no replacement with a governing authority. At first it appeared that educational research was inconclusive as to how effective computer-based simulations and games are in encouraging more violent behavior, though seen as an issue deserving further attention (Centerwall, 1989). By the year 2000, six major organizations representing the public health community (American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Child &Adolescent Psychiatry) issued a joint statement condemning the current use of violence in media commonly available to youth.

At this time, well over 1000 studies – including reports from the Surgeon General’s office, the National Institute of Mental Health, and numerous studies conducted by leading figures within our medical and public health organizations – our own members – point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children.  Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children, 2000.

Among other conclusions, the joint statement noted that children and youth with heavy exposure to violence are "more likely to view violence as an effective way of settling conflicts" with such behavior continuing into later life. Further, such exposure decreases the likelihood  that they will take action on behalf of a victim of violence. Confirmation of the impact on school grades and school behaviors continues (Funk, et al.).  More recently critics have taken labeling a genre of media with the title of murderware (Newton, 2004). Through the critique of such "curriculum materials" provided by our culture, through political lobbying and more, through an understanding of the psychology by which violence and killing is enabled, educators must work strenuously to defang this significant and dangerous use of new media (Kopel, 1995). Media literacy project materials for dealing with violence and other media issues are commonly available: e.g., Directory of Media Literacy Sites Worldwide; Center for Media Literacy; Related PBS Media Literacy Sites and Programs; New Mexico Media Literacy Project. The Lion & Lamb Project provides an extensive list of current research on the impact of exposure to violence.

This is not to imply that new media is inherently violent. Rather, it is inherent that malevolent cultural forces work constantly to find new ways to emerge. It is inherent that citizens must constantly guard against the wolves of old problems emerging under the sheepskin of new developments. This requires the active engagement of our pedagogy, not avoidance.

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To cite this composition:

Houghton, R. S. (2004). Rationale for Multimedia Use and Instruction in Education, v7.7. Western Carolina University. Retrieved on (put date of retrieval here) from http://www.ceap.wcu.edu/Houghton/MM/RationaleMMframes.html

Disclaimer: Any errors are those of the author, and the paper's opinions do not represent any official position of Western Carolina University. The author greatly appreciates the prompt notification of any errors. Updated October 20, 2004.