Auf Wiedersehen, Gutenberg-Hello, McLulan! Improving technical communications using the multimedia approach

Words, long the sturdy base of communications, have entered a new dimension far beyond the realm of the printed page. New media and new communications techniques are replacing or supplementing many printed messages. TECHNICAL communications become technical COMMUNICATIONS, and a communicator who can master all media fills a new and expanding role in crossing all scientific boundaries. In this new age of communications, effectiveness of the media and the message through impact assessment become more important than scientific dogma, and ethics move the resulting benefits of presentation into the realm of working for the overall public good in the process.