Communications technology is expanding, both in sophistication and availability. These media break down boundaries of time and place. Many places across the world are now connected electronically by the telephone, television, computer satellite, the Internet, or fiber optic cable. Linked by satellite, engineers on earth and astronauts in space can work together to make computerized adjustments to instruments on the exterior of a space shuttle. Teachers and students in Massachusetts can participate in arctic expeditions via the Internet.
Traditional texts are essentially linear, bound to the logic of language.
Interpreting them requires readers' constant and active intellectual engagement. Producers of electronic media, on the other hand, often employ nonlinear forms of organization. For that reason, educators must teach students to understand and analyze the qualities of these new and powerful tools. When they teach from printed text, teachers show students the ways in which words and images are chosen for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. When they teach about electronic media, they should pay equivalent attention to analyzing how moving images and sound, as well as words, become the focus of manipulation.