Subject: Definition of multimedia

From: Chris Cartledge <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 17:15:01 +0100

STATUS: Personal Contribution - my final thoughts on this matter - please
        feel free to ignore or distribute more widely.

Multimedia: noun, adjective - the simultaneous use of more than one
	    medium for communication.

Note:
Not necessarily digital or even electronic - but standardization should
be on digital multimedia only and the systems for creating, storing
delivering and controlling it.  Not necessarily time-dependent or
interactive, but these are essential requirements for JTC1
standardization.  JTC1 Editors may care to use the word only as an
adjective to ensure that the context is always clear.

Rational:
Multimedia is now an accepted English word (noun and adjective) and it
would be contrary for JTC1 to adopt some other meaning.

English examples of the use of multimedia as a noun follow:

  "multimedia can no longer be dismissed as mere marketing hype"
  Windows User Sep 93

  Multimedia 93
  Exhibition name

Dictionary Definitions:

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (1983 edition):

  --noun. multimedia  the use of a combination of different media of
  communication (in eg. entertainment, education): simultaneous
  presentation of several visual and/or sound entertainments. -- Also
  adjective.

2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1991):

  multi-media, adjective. Designing or pertaining to a form of artistic
  educational or commercial communication in which more than one medium is
  used.  Hence as noun.

  The first references are as follows:

  1962, Times 26 February (Canada Sup) The first prong is a multi-media
  publicity campaign...

  1962 Listener.  Both Futurists and Dadaists had a keen interest in
  multi-media art...

  with the first modern spelling being

  1970 Times.  ...performances of the Military Tatto and of the multimedia
  rock musical "Stomp"...

Regards

Chris Cartledge

Academic Computing Services, University of Sheffield, GB-Sheffield, S10 2TN
Tel: 0742 824274, Fax: 0742 753899