The history behind this CoverWeb

With an uncomfortable irony, we understand that in writing this introduction, we have created a paradox. This CoverWeb was first developed as an opportunity for authors to examine and practice new media scholarship. We envisioned submissions that engaged new media both as a way of thinking about multimodal communication and as a tool for developing multimodal arguments. Rather than sole reliance on written text to discuss multiple modes of communication, we encouraged authors to create "outside the box" by developing their own new media texts. Obviously, this linear bridge text does not enact the practice that we have asked of our authors. Our mea culpa: From this bridge text, we hope to help readers understand the possibilities of reading and interpreting new media scholarship so that in the future, authors may consider taking advantage of new media techniques to compose arguments differently. Our bridge text, therefore, stands in stark differentiation from the essence of the Kairos' 8.1 CoverWeb. We offer Kairos readers this CoverWeb as evidence that the time has come to recognize authors differently as "composers" of new media and to begin composing more "experimental" new media texts for scholarly publication.

In the summer of 2002, the major online journals in composition published a collaborative issue on electronic publishing. In that issue, several authors referenced the Convention of College Composition and Communication's position statement on scholarship requirements for tenure and promotion. This statement suggested that departments reconsider the types of publications required for tenure or advancement, and that departmental guidelines should include acceptance of scholarly works that are "observational and experimental," both of which are deemed "important" in advancing knowledge in the field (CCCC).

Steven Krause (2002), in "Considering the Values of Self-Published Web Sites," stated: "Few of us in English studies nowadays would label articles published in online journals as 'not scholarship' for the purposes of tenure and review." But, what counts as "scholarship" is still under the microscope -- and the connection among experimental online texts, new media, and rhetorical scholarship needs further exploration.

It is for that reason that, as co-editors of the CoverWeb, we decided to focus this issue on new media. Doing so was not easy, as we each understood and defined new media differently. In publishing this issue's Call for Webtexts, we struggled over how to describe what we wanted from authors and whether we should even attempt a definition of new media. In the end, we agreed to not define it -- since the definitions are many, we wanted to see what authors would submit. We decided to explore the range of texts that authors are labeling new media, and then to offer this broadening compilation as a way to further complicate our own definitions and those of our readers. Thus, this CoverWeb is a snapshot of new media for 2002-03.

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