+ Page 7 +

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 #######   ########   ########  ###########
   ###     ###   ##   ###   ##  #   ###   #   Interpersonal Computing and
   ###     ###   ##   ###   ##      ###               Technology:
   ###     ###   ##   ###           ###        An Electronic Journal for
   ###     ########   ###           ###            the 21st Century
   ###     ###        ###           ###
   ###     ###        ###   ##      ###             ISSN: 1064-4326
   ###     ###        ###   ##      ###              October 1996
 #######   ###        ########      ###      Volume 4, Number 3-4, pp.7-26
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Published by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology
            Additional support provided by Georgetown University
                   University of Maryland Baltimore County
	                  Northern Arizona University

             This article is archived as BARNES IPCTV4N4 on
                   LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

LITERACY SKILLS IN THE AGE OF GRAPHICAL INTERFACES & NEW MEDIA

Susan B. Barnes
Fordham University

ABSTRACT

Graphical interfaces that use icons to execute computer commands
are influencing traditional literacy skills. By adding a new
visual language to the reading process this technology alters
print-based reading skills because it adds visual thinking to
verbal reading skills. The introduction of new media, such as
hypertext and multimedia, further reinforce this trend by adding
visual elements to texts. To date, educators have mixed reactions
to the influence of new media on traditional literacy skills.
However, some educators fear that computer technology will
require people to learn additional skills to become literate, as
a result, a huge gap will be created between people who are
techno-literate and techno-illiterate. This article describes
some of the literacy issues raised by the introduction of
graphical interfaces and new media in education.

INTRODUCTION

	Last night, I observed a college student attempting to use a
simple word processing program for the first time. The program
was Microsoft Word 4.0 operating on the Macintosh. She was trying
to follow the step-by-step instructions written in a workbook. I
watched as the student pointed and clicked the mouse, pecked and
typed at the keyboard, and then highlighted and inadvertently
erased most of her work. After tying for two hours to operate the
machine, she complained that the workbook was boring to read and
the screen confused her. It became obvious to me that she did not
like to read and she was trying to figure out how to work the
program from the graphical icons displayed on the screen.
Finally, she asked: Why isn't this computer as easy to use as my
telephone? Why can't I just press a few buttons and make it work?
The student sitting next to her tried to explain that a computer
is not like a telephone, instead, it is similar to learning a new
language. In contrast to widespread advertising campaigns that
describe computers as user-friendly, computer users need to learn
new literacy skills.

	In the early days of computing, people had to learn programming
languages to operate the machine. For example, when the personal
computer was first introduced, users had to know some basic programming
commands because these machines had command-line interfaces that
required users to type in letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. To
become computer literate, students and teachers had to learn text-
oriented programming commands.

 + Page 8 +

	In 1982, the Association for Computing Machinery listed the
following as requirements for teachers to be considered computer
literate:

* Be able to read and write a simple program
* Have experience using education software and documentation
* Have a working knowledge of computer terminology


* Be able to discuss the history of computers
* Be able to discuss the moral or human impact issues (Martin &
    Heller, 1982, p. 46).

	Today, after the widespread use of Macintosh and Microsoft's
graphical interface called Windows, people no longer need to learn
programming languages to operate a computer. Instead, people can point
and click on visual icons to make the machine work. This new technique
is called the user-friendly method of computing. Paul Heckel (1984)
describes this approach as follows:

The critical problem of making average people literate, was to
teach them to read skilled writers already existed. But in the
computer age the major problem is just the reverse--it is to make
the software designer a skilled communicator, not to make the
average person computer literate. (p. 3)

	The goal of designing user-friendly software is to make the
computer easy to use. Provenzo (1986) states: "with the recent
widespread proliferation and use of microcomputers, there has emerged
an increasing demand for user-friendly languages and programs, a
development similar to the increased number of books published in the
vernacular during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries" (p. 12).
Introduced in 1984, the Apple Macintosh was the first successfully
marketed user-friendly computer with a graphical user interface. The
basic philosophy behind the Macintosh is that it is easier to learn
from pictures than from words. Graphical interfaces do not require the
user to memorize commands, but rather enables the user through software
programming to point to an object on the screen and click on an iconic
command by using a mouse or pointing device. There is no doubt that
this method makes the computer easier to operate.

	However, the user-friendly method of computing has altered the
definition of computer literacy. According to Seymour Papert (1993),
*computer literacy* has come to be defined, especially in the context
of School, as a very minimal practical knowledge about computers.
Someone who had so minimal level of knowledge of reading, writing, and
literature would be called illiterate; the same considerations ought to
lead us to call someone who has an equally minimal knowledge about
computers computer-illiterate (pp. 51-52). Instead, we tend to consider
anyone who can turn on a computer and point and click on an application
program with a mouse to be computer literate.

 + Page 9 +

In addition to changing our concept of computer literacy, user friendly
graphical interfaces are altering literacy skills in general. The use
of graphical interfaces raises four major literacy issues. First,
graphical interfaces influence traditional literacy skills. Educators
(Halio, 1990; Levy, 1990, November) have observed that writing
graphical interface environments have an impact on writing skills.
Moreover, Richard A. Lanham (1993) argues that graphical interfaces
change the reading process. By changing reading and writing skills,
graphical interfaces could alter the future of language.

       Second, educators are beginning to address the differences between
traditional media and new media created using graphical interface
technology. These differences can be discussed in terms of the features
of print-based culture described by Eisenstein (1987, 1983). These
features include dissemination; standardization of information;
rationalizing, codifying and cataloguing of data; fixity and cumulative
change of information; and amplification and reinforcement of messages.
Currently, new media, such as hypertext and multimedia, tend to reverse
many of these characteristics of print. As a result, new media could
influence the future of language and culture.

	Third, although educators (Barrett, 1989, 1992; Landow,1991,
1992a, 1992b; Lanham, 1993; & Tuman, 1992a, 1992b) all agree that new
media are different from traditional print-based media, they have mixed
opinions of their impact on literacy and education. Some argue these
technologies expand a student's ability to communicate ideas, while
others argue that they are harmful to traditional learning skills.
Finally, educators (Barnes, 1996; Phillips, 1994) are concerned that
computer technology will add additional skills to the concept of
literacy and create a chasm between people who are techno-literate and
those who are not. As a result, the ultimate influence of new media
will be the creation of a society of technological haves and have-nots.

GRAPHICAL INTERFACES AND TRADITIONAL LITERACY

	In January 1990, a debate started over the potential impact of
graphical interfaces on traditional writing skills. A writing professor
at the University of Delaware, Marcia Peoples Halio, observed that
students writing with graphical interfaces do not write essays as well
as students working in command-line interfaces, such as MSDOS. Halio
(1990) describes the writing style of students composing on Macintosh
computers as follows:

	As to style: paragraphs were brief, resulting in a lack of
development of thought; and sentences, too, were short,
obviating the need for complex punctuation. Word choice tended
to be simple, spiced with slang and colloquialisms,
accentuating the simplistic and generalized nature of the
thought. As I looked closer at the writing, I became aware that
many of the students were affecting a sort of pop-style of the
kind found in advertising or in the mass media. (17)

	Students were observed to write differently with Macintosh
computers. They loved to play with the type faces on the machine and
emphasize words by using different kinds of type styles. An argument
developed against writing with the Macintosh because it was noticed
that students get distracted by the graphic capabilities of the

 + Page 10 +

computer, as a result, they do not concentrate on their writing skills.
Levy (1990, November) states: Halio's ultimate complaint is that the
Macintosh fast-lanes students into a pop culture form of expression (p.
74). The bitmapped display of text and graphics on a computer screen
enables students to merge pictures with text. Consequently, students
devote much of their energies into what papers *look like* rather than
perfecting the prose (p. 74).

	Prior to Halio's observation educators believed that word
processors provided students with a powerful new tool for producing
traditional texts. Computers could assist students in the writing
process by helping them find better ways to communicate, organize their
ideas, and edit papers. According to Tuman (1992b):

What Halio reported was not that computers do not always help this
process, or that they may hurt it. Research suggesting as much had long
been in circulation; instead, what she reported was something more
troubling, and more controversial namely, that the computer technology
itself (specifically, the type of computer one was using) had a
significant impact on the quality of what one wrote. (p. 109)

	Halio's observation aroused controversy. Her admittedly limited
research methodology was immediately attacked and she received hundreds
of letters from Macintosh-based writing teachers. A counter argument
against Halio was launched by the Macintosh professors. It claims that
graphical interfaces enable students to develop ideas in both textual
and visual formats. Thus, graphical interfaces increase a student's
ability to express ideas. Limiting oneself to words alone is a kind of
poverty (Levy, 1990, November).

	Underlying this debate is the idea that computer technology will
alter the future of literacy. Halio's observation has profound
implications for the realignment of the relationship between words and
pictures. Tuman (1992b) states that it dramatizes the conflict between
print and on-line literacy soon to be played out across the culture at
large (p. 110). On-line literacy provides student authors with graphic
design tools that were previously only available to professional
artists. With on-line literacy, the abstract world of verbal expression
and meaning can now be expanded to include graphic elements and
pictures. Halio's ultimate fear is that the visual orientation of
on-line writing will create a new type of post-literate communication
that replaces the traditional strengths of logic with visceral forms of
graphic persuasion. Ultimately, writing skills will suffer because a
machine designed for on-line literacy undermines some of the guiding
principles of print literacy (p. 111).

	While educators disagree about the impact of graphical interfaces
on traditional writing skills, there is no doubt that this type of
interface alters traditional reading skills. David Jay Bolter (1991)
describes reading from a computer screen as follows:

 + Page 11 +

Readers must move back and forth from the linear presentation of verbal
text to the two-dimensional field of electronic picture writing. They
can read the alphabetic signs in the conventional way, but they must
also parse diagrams, illustrations, windows, and icons. Electronic
readers therefore shuttle between two modes of reading, or rather they
learn to read in a way that combines verbal and picture reading. Their
reading includes activating signs by typing and moving the cursor and
then making symbolic sense of the motions that their movements produce.
(p. 71)

	On-line readers of computer screens notice the visual elements in
texts, however, print-based readers do not. Despite the considerable
presence of visual elements in printed text, they tend to go unnoticed
(Landow, 1992b, p. 49). Readers of printed texts have so completely
internalized the alphabet that it is transparent in the reading
process. Richard A. Lanham (1993) states: The late Eric Havelock, in
his pioneering  work on the Greek alphabet, stressed that an alphabet
that could support a high literate culture had to be simple enough to
be learned easily in childhood. Thoroughly internalized at that time,
it would become a transparent window into conceptual thought. The shape
of letters, the written surface, was not to be read aesthetically; that
would only interfere with purely literate transparency. Reading would
not, except in its learning stages, be a self conscious, rule-governed,
re-creative act but an intuitive skill, a literate compact exercised on
the way to thought. (p. 4)

	Lanham (1993) asserts that by introducing visual elements the
computer screen destabilizes the reading process. Readers no longer
look through the *transparent* printed type faces to read a written
passage, but they look *at* the decorative page. Instead of just
transparently reading language, readers now become more self-conscious
of the text. On computer screens, the textual surface is now a
malleable and self-conscious one. All kinds of production decisions
have now become authorial ones (p. 5). Readers and writers of
electronic texts can change the type styles, proportions, and ratios of
visual elements displayed on the screen. For instance, the reader can
increase the type size of a document to make the text easier to see.

	In contrast to printed texts that codify information as fixed
sequences of discrete letters represented by symbols and sounds,
computers reduce all information into the mathematical binary system of
1s or 0s. Text, pictures, photographs, and graphics can all be stored
as binary information. As a result, the digital codification of
information alters the relationship between written words and images.
Digitized communication is forcing a radical realignment of the
alphabetic and graphic components of ordinary textual communication
(Lanham, 1993, p. 3). By altering the icon/alphabet ratio in texts,
graphical computer screens change the process of reading.

 + Page 12 +

ELECTRONIC VERSUS PRINT-BASED CULTURE

	Altering methods of reading and writing has larger cultural
implications. Reading and writing have evolved over thousands of years,
not just as a means of communication, but as a means of organizing and
formulating knowledge (Tuman, 1992b, p. 13). For example, Elizabeth
Eisenstein argues that the printing press was a force for cultural
unification during the centuries when the modern nation states were
being formed (Bolter, 1991, p. 233). Eisenstein (1979) states:
typography arrested linguistic drift, enriched as well as standardized
vernaculars, and paved the way for the more deliberate purification and
codification of all major European languages (p. 117). Thus, the fixed
standard written text led to national unification.

	In her book, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe,
Eisenstein (1983) identifies fixity as a characteristic of print
culture. She states:

Of all the new features introduced by the duplicative powers of
print, preservation is possibly the most important. To
appreciate its importance, we need to recall the conditions
that prevailed before texts could be set in type. No
manuscript, however useful as a reference guide, could be
preserved for long without undergoing corruption by copyists,
and even this sort of *preservation* rested precariously on the
shifting demands of local elites and a fluctuating incidence of
trained scribal labor. (p. 78)

	But, what happens when text moves from the printed page to the
computer screen? First, the digital text becomes unfixed and
interactive. The reader can change it, become writer. The center of
Western culture since the great Alexandrian editors of Homer has been
the fixed, authoritative, canonical text.  It now simply explodes into
the ether (Lanham, 1993, p. 31). When the printed word becomes
electronic, the text is no longer fixed and static. The permanence of
the printed word is transformed into an ever changing array of
characters that scroll across the computer screen. Today, the
microcomputer is potentially as powerful and important a medium in the
redefinition of contemporary culture as the printing press was to early
modern European culture.

	In Understanding Media, McLuhan (1964) recognized the influence
electronic media would have on the future of culture. Specifically, he
understood the impact this technology would have on language. McLuhan
states:

Our new electric technology that extends our senses and nerves
in a global embrace has large implications for the future of
language.  Electric technology does not need words any more
than the digital computer needs numbers. Electricity points the
way to an extension of the process of consciousness itself, on
a world scale, and without any verbalization whatever. (p. 83)

 + Page 13 +

	According to McLuhan, electronic visual images have the potential
to supersede traditional language. Computer screens with their ability
to display graphics as easily as words, makes this concept a possible
reality. Therefore, a potential cultural consequence of graphical
interfaces is the disruption of word-oriented written language.

VISUAL LITERACY SKILLS AND LANGUAGE

Written language is disrupted because graphical interfaces introduce a
new form of picture writing. Bolter (1991) asserts that icons
constitute the computer's original contribution to our writing system.
Although an icon may have a name, it is above all a picture that
performs or receives an action, and that action gives the icon its
meaning (pp. 51-52). He describes the process of picture writing as
follows:

        With the help of the mouse, the user positions the arrow over
particular images, clicks, and then drags. If the image is a
file, it follows the user's dragging motion and moves to
another folder or copies itself onto another disk. If the image
is a program, the clicking twice will activate the program and
change the screen accordingly. In other words these images are
symbolic elements in a true picture writing. They do not merely
remind the user of documents and programs: they represent
documents and programs. Reorganizing and activating these
elements *is* writing, just as putting alphabetic characters in
a row is writing. (p. 51)

	People using graphical interfaces must first learn the picture
writing system of the software before they can begin to perform other
tasks. Once this skill is mastered, writers find themselves working in
a medium that expands writing from a system of verbal language to one
that involves nonverbal information. Consequently, computer writing is
more complex, for it includes in its space a number of systems, both
open and closed. Phonetic writing, graphs, diagrams, and icons can
exist side by side on the computer screen. . . The computer space is
always ready to incorporate new signs (Bolter, 1991, p. 54). Every
sophisticated program presents the reader with a new vocabulary of data
elements that have their own visual expression. These elements become
topical units that the user combines to construct meaningful texts (p.
54). For example, HyperCard introduces the visual metaphor of a stack
of cards. Text and graphics are placed on individual cards and the
cards are then arranged in stacks. Stacks can be arranged in linear
sequence or linked together for readers to interactively access. The
computer system as a whole is a constantly expanding repertoire of such
codes. While each such code is well-defined and stable, the collection
is not. The elements of writing in the computer are always in flux (p.
54).

	By adding visual writing to the literacy process, graphical
interfaces challenge the stability of language itself. Arnheim (1969),
a pioneer in visual thinking research, asserts that language is a
stabilizing perceptual medium. Although, he argues that visual thinking
is the primary form of thought, he recognizes the role of language in

 + Page 14 +

the classification, identification, and communication of ideas and
concepts. Arnheim (1969) states: the function of language is
essentially conservative and stabilizing (pp. 244). In contrast, the
digital system of visual/verbal codification is a destabilizing method
for viewing language. The digitization now common to letters and shapes
creates a mixed text of icons and words in which static and immobile
and dynamically mobile cognitive styles toggle back and forth into a new
bi-stable expressivity (Lanham, 1993, p. 77). In electronic texts,
language is no longer the central form of thinking. Readers of
electronic texts must think both visually and verbally. Suzanne Langer
(1957) describes the differences between visual and verbal thinking as
follows:

Visual forms: lines, colors, proportions, etc. are just as
capable of *articulation*, of complex combination, as words.
But the laws that govern this sort of articulation are
altogether different from the laws of syntax that govern
language. The most radical difference is that *visual* forms are
not *discursive*. They do not present their constituents
successively, but simultaneously, so the relations determining
a visual structure. Their complexity, consequently, is not
limited, as the complexity of discourse is limited, but what
the mind can retain from the beginning of an apperceptive act
to the end of it. (p. 93)

	In contrast to printing's tendency to standardize language, the
graphical computer screen has the opposite effect. It opposes the
standardization of language because it adds an expanding repertoire of
picture writing to written language. This change requires people to
think both visually and verbally. Graphical interfaces make readers pay
attention to text, icons, images, and their relationships. Lanham
(1993) states the Apple world, born in personal computers not
mainframes, has from the beginning been dominated by the play impulse.
It colored motive, style, mood, personality type. Apple's graphics-
based computers were built upon, assumed, a transformed alphabet/icon
ratio (p. 47). Developers of graphical interfaces assumed that learning
from visual icons is easier than learning from text because this user
friendly approach enables people with little experience to interact
successfully with a computer. Although this approach makes computers
easier to operate, we are now beginning to realize that this technology
has the potential to disrupt the stability of written language systems.

NEW MEDIA: HYPERTEXT & MULTIMEDIA

	In addition to destabilizing language, new media developed using
graphical interfaces reverse the fixity of print-based media. As a
system of reading and writing, electronic text is never fixed. Unlike
the spatial fixity of text reproduced by means of book technology,
electronic text always has variation, for no one state or version is
ever final; it can always be changed. Compared to a printed text, one
in electronic form appears relatively dynamic, since it always permits
correction, updating, and similar modification (Landow, 1992b, p. 52).
In any technique of reading and writing, structure matters more that
appearance or convenience, and the electronic book, whether it is

 + Page 15 +

embodied in today's boxy microcomputer or in a slim electronic notebook
of the future, gives text a new structure. In place of the static pages
of the printed book, the electronic book maintains text as a fluid
network of verbal elements (Bolter, 1991, pp. 4-5). Structurally,
electronic text becomes a network of relationships--or a hyptertext.

	Hypertext is a way of organizing information and navigating
through electronic texts stored on individual computers and networks.
When printed texts are transferred into electronic hypertexts they are
transformed from static books into dynamic interactive networks of
information. Hypertext information is accessed using both structured
and individualized retrieval methods. As a result, hypertext supports a
variety of different methods that arrange the *meta-hypertext* in
different discourse structures. For example, hypertexts can be
organized in highly cohesive text structures that support linear
readings of the text. This type of hypertext structure automates the
footnote and referencing mechanisms typical of paper-based learning,
and it provides a linear view of human cognition (Shirk, 1992, p. 87).
In addition to linear reading, hypertexts can also be arranged in the
form of a web network structure that supports associative links between
texts. This structure is most appropriate for promoting the kind of
exploration that occurs during development of new ideas (p. 84). Thus,
hypertexts can be arranged into an overall structure that supports both
linear and associative reading of texts.

	Hypertext is more than a text-based information system because a
hypertext data base supports structured and arbitrary links among a
variety of digital media types including multimedia sources. When
hypertext documents include links to animation, audio, and video data,
they are sometimes called hypermedia. Many people use the term
hypermedia interchangeably with multimedia. However, educators should
be aware that there is a difference between hypertext and multimedia.
Hypertext is a model for hypermedia that is designed using principles
of text oriented literacy, in contrast, multimedia presents information
primarily in the form of video and graphics.

	Proponents of hypertext argue that it is a valuable scholarly
tool because it has the ability to connect information together in ways
that support traditional learning skills. A case for hypertext . . . is
frequently made in terms of freeing text from the confines of print. In
a hypertext environment, information is liberated from its static
presentation on the page. Modules are stored as a textbase and can be
accessed in a sequence determined solely by the reader (Carlson, 1992,
p. 59). As a result, hypertext provides students with an individualized
student-centered learning tool. Because bodies of linked texts and
images contain such a rich abundance of connections, using them can
develop beginning students habits of linking ideas and contexts
(Landow, 1992a, p. 196).

	Students using hypertexts become active participants in the
process of reading and writing, actively participate in two related
ways: they act as reader-authors both by choosing individual paths
through linked primary and secondary texts and by adding texts and
links to the [hypertext] (Landow, 1992b, p. 121). Additionally, unlike

 + Page 16 +

users of other information systems, hypertext readers must remain
mentally active. They are active because students have to decide which
paths to select and what information to access. Nonlinear thinking
stimulates processes of integration and contextualization that are not
possible with print-based media.

	Similarly, using hypertext as an educational writing medium
creates active and collaborative human interactions. Hypertext
inevitably demands additional collaborative work from the student,
collaboration between student and teacher, and between student and
student.  The student writer (or rather, reader-writer) always writes
in the electronic or virtual presence of other documents by other
students and faculty and hence is always writing collaboratively with
them in a way not possible in the world of print technology (Landow,
1992a, p. 199). The active participation of hypertext reader-writers,
Barrett (1992) argues, creates a new form of social interaction that
turns hypertext into a socio-media. Hypertext forces us to look outward
from the machine into the complex interaction of human relationships
which define university and education, human relationships that are the
real content of all educational technology (p. 9).

Barriers

	Hypertext can add technological barriers to accessing texts. For
example, students need to understand the electronic context, learn the
visual symbols, and know the mechanics of accessing, reading and
writing nonlinear texts (Barnes, 1994, p. 24). Moreover, students can
get lost navigating in hypertexts. The same hypermedia program allowing
a search through vast amounts of material has the propensity to lose
the user in hyperspace (Brown, 1994, p. 40). People using these systems
frequently do not know where they are, how they got there, and how to
find the information they are looking for. Thus, learning to find
information in a hypertext requires people to learn additional
information access and retrieval skills.

	Additionally, educators argue that hypertext is troubling because
it's a way of presenting documents on screen without imposing a linear
start-to-finish order. Disembodied paragraphs are linked by theme . . .
Teaching children to understand the orderly unfolding of a plot or a
logical argument is a crucial part of education (Gelernter, 1994, p.
14). By separating texts into separate paragraphs, the overall logical
sequence is lost. Stephanie Gibson (1996) discusses this point in her
article "Is All Coherence Gone?" She states "linearity and
sequentiality, characteristics associated with print force, or request,
an audience to attend in a particular way. Non-linear possibilities
crack open the relationship between user and text" (p. 9). Hypertext
opponents are concerned that readers of hypertexts will ignore the
story presented in a text. Stories will become incoherent bits of

 + Page 17 +

information that a reader must make sense out of. As a result,
hypertext will accentuate already bad media habits created by other
media, such as television. Although, educators are critical of
hypertext, it still remains a new medium that is grounded in the
traditional skills of reading and writing.

	In contrast, multimedia promises to add television
characteristics to formerly static print-oriented instructional
materials. Many multimedia systems are based mostly on displaying
various film clips to a passive user who does not actively navigate an
information space (Nielsen, 1990, p. 10). Bolter (1996) states: "a
typical multimedia application relies for its rhetorical effect
principally on video and graphics and secondarily on sound" (p. 106).
Words are used as captions for graphics, to identify navigation
buttons, and communicate only what cannot be pictured easily. Video and
graphics are used as the primary form of communication. The current
generation of classroom computers are sold with multimedia features,
including CD-ROM and digital video players. These machines become
multimedia delivery systems that faculty can use to develop and deliver
learning material (Cavalier, 1992).

	The introduction of interactive hypertext and multimedia systems
into schools radically alters the use of instructional technologies in
the classroom. Hartman, Diem and Quagliana (1992) state:

The step from early, largely linear and highly-structured
computer-based instruction systems to today's concept of
interactive multimedia is a giant one in the evolutionary
development of instructional technologies. The convergence of
the television, computer, and publishing industries has created
desktop systems that combine images, sound, and text, and the
relative cost of these systems has decreased significantly. . .
Software development tools such as HyperCard and ToolBook,
which are easy to use and widely available, enable non-
programmers to create cohesive applications that link various
sources and types of information. (p. 175)

	Supporters of multimedia argue that it can be used to develop
lectures and classroom materials in a manner analogous to the manner in
which an article or book is prepared on a word processor (Cavalier,
1992). One benefit of multimedia is that it can be projected or
displayed on computer screens to act as an audio visual teaching aid.
It can also be stored on a computer for students to use as a review of
the classroom lecture. Thus, multimedia can be used to create a variety
of class-specific teaching and learning materials. Moreover, multimedia
proponents argue that it represents a return to richer, pre-print
modalities of expression, as if we are coming to our senses after the
anesthetic of monochrome words (Cotton & Oliver, 1993, p. 88).

 + Page 18 +

Multimedia offers the opportunity to reason, think, speculate, debate
and learn in more concrete, multi-sensory terms than the abstract forms
of written or mathematical expression.

	While some educators have embraced these benefits of multimedia,
many have not. Critics of multimedia compare it to television. Levy
(1990, June) states that multimedia's legacy will be the debasement of
the remaining forms of communication in this country that have not
already been debased by the perpetually widening gyre of television (p.
61). Some educators argue that multimedia makes the worst educational
nightmares come true. While we bemoan the decline of literacy,
computers discount words in favor of pictures and pictures in favor of
video. . . . The idea of multimedia is to combine text, sound and
pictures in a single package that you browse on screen (Gelernter,
1994, p. 14). Instead of reading a subject, such as Shakespeare,
students watch actors performing. What's wrong with that? By offering
children candy-coated books, multimedia is guaranteed to sour them on
unsweetened reading. It makes the printed page look even more boring
than it used to look (p. 14). Lanham (1993) states:

I shocked a multimedia conference where these programs had just
been demonstrated with full showbiz fanfare (darkened room, big
color screen, sound so loud it made your chest cavity vibrate)
by suggesting that these were intrinsically *mindless*
products. Using arguments not unlike those developed by
hypertext enthusiasts, they were billed as the brilliant new
teacher of the future: self-paced, permissive learning, deep
database of reference material for students, the invitation to
infinite networking. Their primary developer described these
programs as a cultural Noah's ark floating in a sea of
illiteracy and bad teaching. The programs offered not a teacher
or a curriculum or a book or a lesson plan, or even the table
of contents for any of these. They supplied only the raw
material, the parts list, for them. These programs employed
every animated effect that multimedia can have except the
animation of the human mind. (p. 218)

	In general, Lanham found that multimedia programs demonstrated
poor educational design. However, the simple truth is that multimedia
application design is hard. Today's students and even their parents
have grown up appreciating the increasingly visual sophistication of
modern advertising and television. . . . Today's students lose patience
with visual juxtapositions they consider to be bland, trite, or
insincere (Schlusselberg & Harward, 1992, p. 95). Creating an
interactive multimedia project presents a very different set of design
issues than a non-interactive book. A reader always knows where he or
she is in a book beginning, middle, or end. A book is meant to be read
linearly. Interactive media is meant to be viewed in any order the
viewer wants. Viewers need visual cues to know where they are, and how
to get where they want to go (Richmond, 1990, p. 183).

 + Page 19 +

	Producing marketable educational multimedia products is similar
to both print publishing and video production. Both rely heavily on
electronic tools: computers for word processing, graphics, page makeup
and typesetting; paintboxes for video image manipulation and computers
for generating, processing and mixing sound (Cotton & Oliver, 1993, p.
76). These same tools are used to develop multimedia projects. However,
multimedia development also requires programming skills to set-up the
interactive links and viewing paths. These projects are usually
designed and developed by a team of people and they are very expensive
to produce. Attractive video or complex graphics cost money
(Schlusselberg & Harward, 1992, p. 96). Companies that produce
multimedia training materials suggest that it takes an average of 200
to 300 man hours to create an hour of multimedia training (Harden,
1994, p. 30). (For a detailed description of developing multimedia
products see _I Sing the Body Electronic_ by Fred Moody.) Most schools
do not have the resources to develop this type of software in-house.
Consequently, many multimedia products are currently being developed by
commercial software companies.

	Software companies that want to reach the home and classroom
educational markets, attempt to create products that are both
educational and entertaining. These programs are called "edutainment."
Many edutainment products use the model of video games rather than
television to captivate their viewers. In video games, there are levels
to conquer, treasurers to find, and villains to pursue. But the fun [in
edutainment] of shooting at a space ship, usually comes as a reward for
serious work: successfully solving a string of equations or correctly
spelling a list of words (Armstrong, Yang & Cuneo, 1994, p. 81).
Proponents of edutainment argue that in the future interactivity,
graphics, sound, and video or multimedia will play an important role in
the classroom (p. 82).

	However, a study of educational edutainment software revealed
that students do not utilize educational software in ways intended by
its designers (Caftori, 1994, p. 64). The study done at Old Orchard
Junior High School (OOJH) in Skokie, Ill revealed that it is not enough
to embed attractive characteristics in the software because these can
easily become a diversion from the real goals. Education objectives
cannot be met using glossy packaging alone and it sells short the
capacity of computers to aid learning (p. 65). The study revealed that
students were attracted to software games, but they would use them for
entertainment and relaxation instead of exploratory learning. Moreover,
there was no guarantee that students interacting with the software
would explore further and learning would occur.

	According to educational software developer Alan Kay (1991), an
educational system that tries to make everything easy and pleasurable
will prevent much important learning from happening (p. 140). He

 + Page 20 +

states: "when convenience is valued over quality in education, we are
led directly to junk learning. This is quite analogous to other junk
phenomena, pale substitutions masquerading for the real thing. Junk
learning leads to junk living." As Neil M. Postman of New York
University says, whether a medium carries junk is not important, since
all media have junk possibilities (p. 141). Kay goes on to say, one
needs to be sure that media incapable of carrying important kinds of
discourse--for example television--do not displace those that can (p.
141).

TECHNO-LITERATES AND TECHNO-ILLITERATES

	Replacing printed texts with hypertext and multimedia as
instructional technology is very controversial. Cotton and Oliver
(1993) argue that one reason why it is controversial is because the
nature of these new media are a threat to educators. They state:

For centuries the written word has had a central authority in
society. Indeed, it could be strongly argued that our notions
of rationality and valid argument are all bound up with modes
of thought that are derived from writing as a medium. The only
real challenge to the primacy of the written word has come from
its more esoteric cousin, the mathematical expression. Both
these media are extremely abstract and their mastery takes many
years of education and training. While most people in modern
society can read, write, and handle simple mathematics, the
greatest concentration of mastery in these media is found in
the elite professions, and is a source of some of their power
and much of their authority. (p. 88)

	Geoghegan (1994) reports that only a small proportion of faculty
are actively developing instructional technology applications. On the
surface, this fact may appear to support the idea that educators are
hesitant to integrate new media into teaching and learning. However,
Geoghegan argues that over half of US faculty members in higher
education use personal computers. Moreover, he asserts that the
instructional technology problem is not attributable to faculty
discomfort with the technology itself, nor to faculty disenchantment
with the potential benefits of information technology to instruction
(p. 4). Instead the problem of using this technology is based on the
following: shortages of equipment and facilities; institutional support
for the development and use of instructional technology; unrealistic
expectations about the development, dissemination and use of
instructional technology (this includes the realities of time, money
and skills required to develop software); the social and psychological
dimensions of technological innovation and diffusion, and a knowledge
of how humans learn.

 + Page 21 +

	Despite large expenditures to integrate instructional technology
throughout American higher education, this technology has not been
generally adopted by mainstream faculty. Using marketing models,
Geoghegan argues that a huge social gap has been created between
faculty members who were early adopters of instructional technology and
mainstream faculty members who are not using it at all. He then
presents strategies to bridge the gap. However, I would argue that
finding the time to keep literacy skills up-to date is the central
issue. For example, when a communications department decides to upgrade
their computer lab from six-year-old Macintosh computers to Windows 95
systems, the faculty will have to upgrade their computer skills. They
must learn the graphical language of Windows 95, which is visually
different from the Macintosh, and they must familiarize themselves with
the new upgraded software programs. Once they are proficient with the
software, all of the instructional materials they have developed for
the Macintosh-based course have to be redone because they are
incompatible or obsolete. The process of relearning computer skills and
the time required to upgrade teaching materials, can be overwhelming.

	Computer technology is constantly changing and faculty members
have difficulty maintaining their computer literacy. Consider the
changes in computer technology over a ten-year period and their
implications for literacy skills. In 1984, the Macintosh erased the
boundaries between digital text and digital graphics by introducing
graphical interfaces and desktop publishing programs. Ten years later,

Apple added sight, sound, color, and motion to the world of digital
information. In ten short years the Macintosh had been transformed from
a small black and white desktop print-oriented computer into a
multimedia powerhouse. During the March 14, 1994, Power Macintosh
promotional event at Alice Tulley Hall, images projected on a large
screen demonstrated the machines new features. For example, Apple
showed a three-dimensional calculator where formulas were instantly
mapped onto 3-D models that rotated. One by one, developers revealed
their new features of sight, sound, color, and motion. Data was shown
switching back and forth between spreadsheet and word processing
programs. With the click of a mouse, numbers where transformed into
charts. The charts could be animated, put into digital videos with
sound, and inserted into word processing documents .

	During the demonstration, I quietly scribbled down a list of the
skills you would need to communicate, using the new features of this
machine. They include: traditional literacy, math, visual literacy,
graphic design, electronic navigation skills, database skills, video
editing, audio editing, and basic programming. Apple's future is a
world where all media types--print, video, audio, television, and film-
-become digital. With the Macintosh, it is just as easy to copy and
paste a piece of digital video, as it is to copy and paste text.
Moreover, the text and video can be combined in the same digital
document. Why just read about Shakespeare, when you can simultaneously
see the text and watch Mel Gibson play Hamlet? Multimedia computers now
make this possible. But, if all forms of communication visual, verbal,
image, sound and motion become digital, don't we now need to know how
to communicate all of these various ways? The literacy required by new
media is the most complex form of literacy we can imagine. It combines
all of the methods humans use to communicate together into one medium.

 + Page 22 +

	Gerald M. Phillips (1994) argued that when people find out how
many new skills they will need to learn to communicate with a computer,
functional illiteracy with rise. In his article, A Nightmare Scenario:
Literacy & Technology, Phillips states: In a world where technology and
literacy marry, we can expect to see an increase in functional
illiteracy. There are estimates that as many [as] 40% of the people in
our society are currently functionally illiterate. The equivocal phrase
appears to mean that people watch too much television and do not read
so many books. We can expect functional illiteracy to rise when people
discover what technological skills they must master to cope with the
world in which they will live. (p. 62)

	Traditional illiteracy is already a problem in the United States.
With the widespread use of visual media, such as television, we have
seen declines in textual literacy skills. A newsletter I received last
week from Representative Jerrold Nadler reports on this issue. He
states that in New York City only 20.4% of students who complete high
school earn a Regents diploma [the state proficiency exam], only 34% of
third graders read at or above grade level and less than half of the
students who began high school four years ago graduated this year
(personal correspondence). In a society that is having trouble teaching
traditional literacy skills, the addition of computer related literacy
skills could result in an overall rise in illiteracy.

	Phillips (1994) asserts that computer technology adds additional
skills to the literacy process. He states, whatever glowing words are
said about the wonders of computer communication or multimedia, the
bottom line is that the computer is a literate and linear machine. It
employs binary mathematics and depends on grammar. When humans fail to
follow the rules, the machine does not respond correctly (p. 52). In
contrast to the idea of user friendly computing, people still need to
learn some programming skills to understand the grammar of the machine.
Thus, learning basic programming principles should be a requirement to
be considered computer literate. Moreover, a failure to make
programming a literacy requirement, creates a gap between people
designing computer programs and those who buy them.

	People who are functionally literate in the use of application
software programs such as spreadsheets and word processing tend to be
illiterate in programming languages. As a result, the gap between the
user--literate group and the designer group is expanding rapidly (Hey,
1991, p. 52). But, this gap becomes a huge chasm when the measurement
is between software designers and people who do not) use a computer at
all. For the great majority of Americans, computers and related digital
technology are a foreign language; they have no access to its meaning
and they cannot participate in its culture (p. 52). Computer literacy
versus illiteracy and access versus no access to equipment is creating
a social schism between techno-literates and techno-illiterates. The
ultimate cultural consequence of new media could be the creation of a
society of technological haves and have nots.

 + Page 23 +

CONCLUSION

	Graphical interfaces that make a computer easier to operate are
influencing the future of literacy. Although graphical interfaces
expand a student's ability to communicate ideas by adding visual
information, they simultaneously may be creating a new type of post-
literate style of communication that substitutes emotional forms of
visual persuasion for the strengths of logic. As a result, educators
have mixed reactions to the introduction of new media in education.
However, they tend to agree on one point. Each medium has its own
profile of cognitive advantages and disadvantages, and each medium can
be used to enhance the impact of the others (Greenfield, 1984, p. 178).

	Moreover, each medium is well suited to certain forms of
communication and poorly suited to others, and if it is wrongly used it
takes revenge (Arnheim, 1986, p. 306). The new media environments of
hypertext and multimedia reinforce two very different communication
models. Developers of hypertext view the technology as primarily
supporting a print-based model of literate communication. In contrast,
multimedia follows the visual trend of television and entertainment.
Educators need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of new media
when they integrate them into the classroom.

	Alan Kay (1991), reminds us that users of media need to be aware,
too, that technology often forces us to choose between quality and
convenience (p. 141). Multimedia may be a convenient way to present
information, however, the educational quality of these products is
questionable. Moreover, in a society that has seen a decline in
traditional literacy skills, sugar-coating learning could have
disastrous social consequences. Despite the user-friendly facade of
graphical interfaces, new media actually require people to learn more -
not less. In fact, learning the literacy skills required to communicate
using new media could overwhelm people into illiteracy.

REFERENCES

Armstrong, L., Yang, D. J. & Cuneo, A. (1994, February 28). The
learning revolution. Business Week, pp. 80-88.

Arnheim, R. (1986, October-December). The images of pictures and words.
Word & Image, vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 306-310.

Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual Thinking. Berkeley: University of California
Press.

Barrett, E. (Ed.). (1992). Sociomedia: Multimedia, hypermedia, and the
social construction of knowledge. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Barrett, E. (Ed.). (1989). The society of text. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Barnes, S. B. (1996). The development of graphical user interfaces from
1970 to 1993, and some of its social implications in offices, schools,
and the graphic arts. (Doctoral Dissertation, New York University,
1995). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, UMI Number: 9609383.

Barnes, S. (1994). Hypertext Literacy. Interpersonal Computing and
Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century, pp. 24-36.

(archived as BARNES IPCTV2N4 on LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU)

 + Page 24 +

Bolter, D. J. (1996). Virtual reality and the redefinition of self. In
L. Strate, R. Jacobson, & S. B. Gibson (Eds.), Communication and
cyberspace, pp. 105-119. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc.

Bolter, D. J. (1992). Literature in the electronic writing space. In M.
C. Tuman (Ed.), Literacy on-line: The promise (and peril) of reading and
writing with computers, pp. 19-42. Pittsburgh, PA: University of
Pittsburgh Press.

Bolter, D. J. (1991). Writing space: The computer, hypertext, and the
history of writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Publishers.

Brown, J. I. (1994). Lost in hyperspace.  Multimedia Today, Volume II,
Issue 4, pp. 40-42.

Caftori, N. (1994, August). Educational effectiveness of computer
software. T.H.E. Journal, pp. 62-65.

Carlson, P. A. (1992). Varieties of virtual: Expanded metaphors for
computer mediated learning. In Edward Barrett (Ed.). Sociomedia:
Multimedia, hypermedia, and the social construction of knowledge, pp.
53-77. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Cavalier, R. J. (1992, May/June). Shifting paradigms in higher
education and educational computing. EDUCOM Review, Volume 27, Number
3. (Electronic Reprint available at EDUCOM@BITNIC.EDUCOM.EDU).

Cotton, B. & Oliver, R. (1993). Understanding hypermedia from
multimedia to virtual reality. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.

Eisenstein, E. L. (1983). The printing revolution in early modern
Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eisenstein, E. L. (1979). The printing press as an agent of change.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gelernter, D. (1994, September 19 & 26). Unplugged: The myth of
computers in the classroom. The New Republic, pp. 14-15.

Gibson, S. (1996). Is all coherence gone? The role of narrative in web
design.  Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal
for the 21st Century, pp. 7-26. (archived as GIBSON IPCTV4N2 on
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU).

Greenfield, P. M. (1984).  Mind and media: The effects of television,
video games, and computers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Geoghegan, W. (1994). What ever happened to instructional technology?
Norwalk, CT: International Business Machines Corporation.

Halio, M. P. (1990, January). Student writing: Can the machine maim the
message? Academic Computing, pp. 16-19.

 + Page 25 +

Harden, S. (1994). Interactive multimedia company sets new standards
for training development productivity. Multimedia Today, Volume II,
Issue 4, pp. 30-33.

Hartman, A., Diem, J. E., & Quagliana, M. (1992). The many faces of
multimedia: How new technologies might change the nature of academic
endeavor. In Edward Barrett (Ed.). Sociomedia: Multimedia, hypermedia,
and the social construction of knowledge, pp. 175-192. Cambridge: MIT
Press.

Heckel, P. (1984). The elements of friendly software design. New York:
Warner Books. Hey, K. R. (1991, August). Techno-wizards & couch potatoes.
Omni, pp. 50-52, 83-85.

Kay, A. C. (1991, September). Computers, networks and education.
Scientific American, pp. 138-148.

Landow, G. P. (1992a). Bootstrapping hypertext: Student-created
documents, Intermedia, and the social construction of knowledge. In
Edward Barrett (Ed.). Sociomedia: Multimedia, hypermedia, and the
social construction of knowledge, pp. 195-217. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Landow, G. P. (1992b). Hyptertext: The convergence of contemporary
critical theory and technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.

Landow, G. P. (1991). The rhetoric of hypermedia: Some rules for
authors. In P. Delany & G. P. Landow (Eds.), Hypermedia and literary
studies, pp. 81-103. Cambridge, MIT Press.

Langer, S. (1957). Philosophy in a new key. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press. Lanham, R. A. (1993). The electronic word: Democracy,
technology, and the arts. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Levy S. (1990, November). The Iconoclast: Does the Mac make you stupid?
MacWorld, pp. 69-78.

Levy S. (1990, June). The end of literature: Multimedia is television's
insidious offspring. MacWorld, pp. 61-70.

Martin, C. D. & Heller R. S. (1982, October). Computer literacy for
teachers. Educational Leadership, pp. 46-47.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media. New York: Signet Books.

Moody, F. (1995). I sing the body electronic: A year with Microsoft on
the multimedia frontier. New York: Viking.

Nielsen, J. (1990). Hypertext and hypermedia. Boston: Academic Press,
Inc. Papert, S. (1993). The children's machine: Rethinking school in the
age of the computer. New York: Basic Books.

 + Page 26 +

Phillips, G. M. (1994, April). A nightmare scenario: Literacy &
technology. Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic
Journal for the 21st Century, pp. 51-73. (archived as PHILLIPS IPCTV2N2
on LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU).

Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death. New York: Penguin
Books. Provenzo, E. F. (1986). Beyond the Gutenberg galaxy. New York:
Teachers College Press.

Richmond, W. (1990). Design & technology: Erasing the boundaries. New
York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Schlusselberg, E. & Harward, V. J . (1992). Multimedia: Informational
alchemy or conceptual typography? In Edward Barrett (Ed.). Sociomedia:
Multimedia, hypermedia, and the social construction of knowledge, pp.
95-106. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Shirk, H. N. (1992). Cognitive architecture in hypermedia instruction.
In Edward Barrett (Ed.). Sociomedia: Multimedia, hypermedia, and the
social construction of knowledge, pp. 79-93. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Tuman, M. C. (1992a). Literacy on-line: The promise (and peril) of
reading and writing with computers.  Pittsburgh, PA: The University of
Pittsburgh Press.

Tuman, M. C. (1992b). Word perfect: Literacy in the computer age.
Pittsburgh, PA: The University of Pittsburgh Press.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES:

Susan B. Barnes received her Ph.D. in Media Ecology from New York
University and is currently an Assistant Professor at Fordham
University in the Department of Communication and Media Studies. Her
chapter Cyberspace: Creating Paradoxes for the Ecology of Self has
recently been published in _Communication and Cyberspace_ edited by Lance
Strate, Ron Jacobson, and Stephanie B. Gibson. Currently she is writing
a book about Internet interpersonal relationships.

sbbarnes@pipeline.com or
barnes@murray.fordham.edu

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Statement
Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the
                             21st Century

Copyright 1996 University of Maryland Baltimore County and the
Association for Educational Communications and Technology.  Copyright of
individual articles in this publication is retained by the individual
authors.  Copyright of the compilation as a whole is held by the
UMBC and AECT. It is asked that any republication of this article state
that the article was first published in IPCT-J.

Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style
to: Susan Barnes, Editor IPCT-J SBBARNES@PIPLELINE.COM or
BARNES@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU