Loss of an Empire/Gaining Another?

Abstract

The opening article in the special issue, Interactivity, Interconnectivity, and Media, takes the high ground in examining the largest and most far-reaching cultural issues associated with the building and maintenance of knowledge.The book with its long development and well understood conventions is being challenged by hypermedia with its as yet unformed conventions for use, while vested interests vie for power and control of information dissemination and storage. Traditional issues of standardization, verification and authenticity solved by the instructions of the book are reopened as issues by hypermedia. Language itself is being reexamined.Much is at stake, as the cultural transition from paper to screen will involve all disciplines in developing new rhetorical rules, behavioral conventions and evaluation modes.All instructions will need to prepare their constituents for a hyperactive data world.