There is an ongoing debate in both academia and the media industry about the meaning of the term multimedia. The distinction is subtle so I will illustrate with examples. On the one hand there are those who argue that there is a distinction between multi- and multiple- media, by pointing out that putting some video next to some text does not equate to proper multimedia in terms of both presentation and user-experience. The true multimedia, by this definition, is something more than the sum of its parts AND something that has a form of its own that is recognisable. In other words, true multimedia is a different type of story-telling that fuses different types of media into a new cohesive form.
This is a point worth considering, because the reality is that the only dramatically new form of storytelling to emerge as a result of new media is the video/computer game. There are of course other new hybrids forms like blogging, like podcasting, like videocasting, like geo-tagged microblogging, like folksonomical aggregation and so on. Each of these are variations of audio or video representations of real people or things involved in some or other activity, or text. The computer game is a representation of a simulation, which is a dramatic shift from anything we have experienced before and has been made possible exclusively by the technology available to us. The only equatable experience, historically, would be a kind of impromptu theatrical production where the audience can join or leave the cast of performers during the actual show.
With this in mind, the ideal of multimedia as a fusion of different and distinct media forms available to us today seems idealistic. In the news and journalism practice, there are two paths to multimedia production that stand out and that influence the way journalists perceive this distinction. The first group have reached multimedia in a way that bypassed the web. This group were impatient in the early days of the Web and embraced the CD-Rom format for multimedia storytelling. The interfaces were rich combinations of video, audio, 3D artistry and text, though text was not the emphasis. To an extent, this is the closest we have yet come to that ideal of multimedia. The second group came via the Web, with a focus primarily on text and photos. They followed the development of FutureSplash, which later become Macromedia Flash and now Adobe Flash, with eagerness because the scriptable environment and video capabilities finally meant that creative storytellers could break out of the constraints of HTML and the lowest common denominator capabilities of the browser.
But as it so often happens in life, those who were impatient and adopted technology early have found themselves needing to reinvent themselves and their conception of the work they do. Those who prefer the rich user experience now have to come to terms with the fact that broadband and the advent of Web 2 has changed the way people consume news online. Users now have the capacity to view videos of the size that previously could only be delivered sensibly via a disc and accessed locally.
User Experience Dissonance
An even greater challenge to the CD/Rich media approach is that the user experience was subtly but fundamentally different. The user would site down in front of a computer, purposefully insert the disc and focus all her attention on the story unfolding on her screen. Generally the multimedia application would run in full-screen mode and block out all other interaction with the computer until that experience is terminated by the user. The navigation was also different from the rest of the Operating System and took creative and sometimes challenging forms. The historical timeline, the grouping of content in chapters or logical topics units, parts of which must be consumed in a linear fashion, especially video clips.
To an extent this was a weakness of the form - that functionally the user was required to constantly modulate her interaction from active to passive. It was, however, possible because the experience was exclusive of other work for its duration.
As these types of multimedia have migrated to the Web, the experience becomes more complicated. Users are faced with an interface which requires exclusive attention but now embedded inside the browser which, in turn, is embedded in the Operating System UI. Within the browser alone, there maybe be multiple tabs, IM windows and work competing for attention.
Expecting a user to devote their full attention to this embedded interface and to modulate between active and passive viewing modes creates user experience dissonance. What they are being asked to do conflicts with the way they are already interacting with environment surrounding it and this creates a sense of discomfort and disappointment.
Massively Multiple Media (M3)
Some news organisations have already embraced this form of storytelling for a variety of reasons ranging from cultural to financial but, regardless of the reasons, there has been a shift away from attempts to live up to the ideal of multimedia as a new form of storytelling and an embrace of multiple media. Consider the publication of special reports - these might involve a series of text stories, photographs, audio, downloadable documents and video. Their presentation is such that they are grouped either by media types of by logical topical units but their navigation is done using conventions already familiar to someone using the web and there is no attempt at fusion between these forms.
In turn, this type of presentation allows users to interact with a story in the same way they do with other types of online content. They can access elements of the story asynchronously and in the order they prefer. It may not be convenient to watch a video at work but the text and photos are convenient. It may not make sense to watch the video embedded inside the page but it may be convenient to download it and watch it on an ipod later, when the time can be devoted to a passive mode of interaction.
Part of the consequence of the explosion of User Generate Content, particularly blogging, has been that audiences have gradually begun to accept the responsibility previously only in the hands of editors: that of ordering and making sense of large volumes of disparate content.
It would make sense then to allow users to do more of this kind of interaction with a story. Here’s an example: a news organisation is covering the war in Iraq and wants to do a special report. It doesn’t have reporters on the ground, at least not permanantly, so it buys text video and photos from news agencies who do have reporters on the scene. They compile this into a page that links to a series of photos, some stories and some video, and them write a synopsis of the collection, and they publish it.
While all of this seems perfectly normal, they are missing out on a major opportunity and that is to aggregate massive amounts of UGC. Youtube has many videos that explore almost all aspects of Iraqi life, often told by Iraqis themselves. Flickr has photos, there are Iraqi blogs and many more different types of content that can be linked to from this special report. Enough to make this special report a valuable resource to someone doing research or interested in the topic. That would be Massively Multiple Media - the news story as a social media aggregator.
There are two counter-arguments to this that I want to address briefly. The first would be reticence on the part of a news organisation to endorse content they don not necessarily trust. This is solved in the following way - make the best attempt to select content on the basis of your internal standards and if there is none that fit your criteria then don’t do it. Secondly, by linking to external resources you are merely brining this content to the attention of your audience, not endorsing it. Maybe include a note warning your readers that you’re sending them away from the site and that the organisation does necessarily endorse the views encountered at the destination.
The second counter-argument is copyright and ownership. In most cases this type of content is published in such a way that the mechanism exists for you to use it without claiming it is your own and, in fact, most creators will be more than happy to get links and recognition from a major news organisation. If you really want to be thorough, send an email saying you want to link to a photo and use a thumbnail - most of the time you will get a positive response and open up a new relationship with someone that might be useful down the line.
So to sum up: Massively Multiple Media is the aggregation of external sources of media into your own for the purpose of enhancing the user experience and being transparent about the existence of other available resources. It provides an experience cohesive with the Web user experience and will contribute significantly to a relationship of trust with your audience. It does feel like I am stating the obvious and I am very aware that many news organisations already do this, so I would really appreciate some feedback on this idea.
Vincent Maher is the strategist at the 
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