ABSTRACT
Many media educators (including myself ) have made brave assertions about the cultural and social signifi cance of nonprint media, claiming that they should be valued as highly as books. Nevertheless, histories of media education can primarily be found in books constructed through references to other books. Paper-based print retains its preeminence as the trusted medium of historical record, not so much because it off ers some mysterious guarantee of truth, but because the systems of access and cross-reference that have been developed for print are still far more sophisticated, and more widely understood, than anything yet devised for moving image, audio, or online media. Books also carry the feature of being more permanent than electronic media forms.
