The emergence of 'interactive media' The origin of this new Journal lies in the excitement we experience in exploring the nature of interactive media. These media can serve many purposes, but for education they create some intriguing intellectual challenges. Here is a medium in which the learner makes a contribution. The ability to manipulate not only the pace and sequence of the material, but also the content and form of presentation, means that people play a fundamentally different role in directing their personal learning experiences. That simple fact allows us to ask some fundamental questions about what this may mean for the nature of knowledge and its construction and acquisition.
Interactive media give users more control over content than the printed word offered.
If the medium thereby changes the way we interact with the articulation of knowledge, then its emergence may be as significant as the change from an oral culture to a written culture. Therein lies the excitement, and the challenge. It is the ambition of this Journal to be a forum for the development of our collective response. As governments and institutions across the world plan expenditure in support of new media amounting to billions of dollars over the next few years, it is appropriate that the issues are subjected to a more insightful critique than they typically receive. If we can create a journal that will foster a community of scholars keen to make both conceptual and practical progress, then there is a greater chance that the expenditure will result in some educational benefits.