Ray Siemens pointed out to me a new journal Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular being launched by Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Communication.
In addition to creating a venue for academic research and modes of expression that go well beyond traditional text to incorporate still and moving images, sound, and interactivity, Vectors seeks to significantly redefine the parameters of scholarly publication.
The subtitle for the journal seems a strange … what is a “dynamic vernacular”? Do they mean the journal will be “interactive” in an everyday fashion?
I am excited to see a journal the recognizes the importance of publishing multimedia works, but that raises the interesting question of how they hope to mount and preserve complex interactive works. Perhaps they won’t bother trying to preserve new media work they publish and will instead focus on using the medium.
A quote from the press release:
Vectors features commissioned multimedia works produced through collaboration
between scholars and artists and also solicits completed works and innovative responses to
these works. This collaborative process aims to develop new forms that draw from
contemporary media practices and technologies, from blogs to mobile devices, while also
underwriting innovative partnerships between diverse cultural institutions. The editors produce
two “issues” per year, crystallizing around key themes that highlight the social, political, and
cultural stakes of our increasingly technologically-mediated existence. (“USC Launches Ground-Breaking Onling Academic Journal”, Jan 10, 2005, contact John Zollinger)